topic Rebuilding after DV in Rebuilding Your Credit

Rebuilding after DV

mm1 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 21:53:44 GMT

Hello,

Long story short, I was in a DV situation for several years and during that time, did a lot of damage to my credit. I am now completely free of that situation and working on rebuilding so that I can purchase a car.

My credit took a lot of hits while I was in this situation. What I have on my report currently are 5 collections (Midland, NCB, LVNV Funding, Portfolio Recovery, and Jefferson Capital), 10 late payments ranging from 2019 to as recently as last month, and 7 charge offs all related to the previously mentioned late payments. No open credit cards and my only other credit is student loans that are all current and have been reporting since 2015. No repos, no judgements. Just the collections and late payments/charge offs.

The first step I've taken was settling the five collections. Each of these companies has it on their websites that they will delete when the accounts are settled, so I'm hoping this helps bump up my credit scores.

Next, I'm planning to send some Goodwill letters. There are at least two accounts that I'm hopeful would work with me. One being Discover because that account was open for 10 years, paid in full several months before they closed it, and I only had missed payments with them. The other is One Main, who I took a loan out with in 2017 and it has been almost 7 years since the account was charged off (August 2019).

Are there any other things that I can start doing to boost my scores? I have a car to drive for the next few months that belongs to a family member who doesn't need it for a bit. I was approved for an auto loan that I turned down due to the APR (25.5%) and decided to use the $5k that I have for a down payment to work on my credit.

Basically, my goal is to purchase a car (2022 and newer, low mileage, in the $20-35k range, my income is $70k annually) hopefully within the next three months. I do have the possibility to use a cosigner if needed, but would still like to work on improving my credit to see what I can do without them or at least improve my odds.

Current scores:
EQ: 567 TU: 588 EX: 569

Re: Rebuilding after DV

pizzadude — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 22:39:31 GMT

Welcome to the forums ! DV is divorce, is that correct ?

It sounds like you're taking the right steps to pay off your open accounts / collections, and eventually paying these will help boost your FICO scores. Good call on declining the auto financing at 25% also.

Do you have any open revolving credit accounts currently ? If not then you should consider opening a secured card or two ; having open revolving accounts will be benefical to your FICO scores.

Re: Rebuilding after DV

mm1 — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 23:19:49 GMT

Apologies, DV as in an abusive/violent relationship. Thankfully, never married but my credit still took a pretty hard impact from being financially abused and guarded.

Yes I forgot to mention that I do have one revolving account open with a limit of $1,500. This was actually one of the charge offs that I was able to pay off and reopen this month. I'm hopeful they'll update the account from charge off status to open.

Re: Rebuilding after DV

FicoMike0 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:02:12 GMT

Ditto @pizzadude

Scores seem to benefit from having three open accounts reporting. As long as they're bank cards, it doesn't matter what they are. A $200 secured card that you seldom use still checks the "paid as agreed" box. Capone is a good place to start, they have perapproval. A lot of banks and credit unions offer secured cards if they won't approve a regular card.

Re: Rebuilding after DV

CaneVariant — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:22:22 GMT

You are off to a good start so far. One of the easier ways to help rebuild is if you have access to join Navy Federal Credit Union. Almost any family member serving in the military gets you in relationally. IF you live in San Diego they do not even ask for proof, I was told "we are in San Diego, everyone has a relative in the Navy". I had my grandfathers paperwork but didn't even get asked to provide it. YMMV. If you can get in use some of your savings to set up a Savings Secured Loan and then pay it down to <9%. It will take a few days/weeks for the money to move around but it will be back in less than a month and you will get a nice score bump for the installment loan. Next take some of the money (depends on your liquidity but the range is $200 to $5000) and open a secured credit card. This investment will take ~6 to 9 months to get returned so keep that in mind. Hopefully the loaner car lasts until the Navy card unsecures then you can use that towards your down payment. You will also have several months of payments on your loan and credit card which doesn't hurt. If you redirect your direct deposit to Navy as well you will likely get a better car rate. There are other options out for all of these products but NFCU just does them better for the "little" rebuilders like me. Good luck!

Re: Rebuilding after DV

mm1 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:50:32 GMT

Thanks for the heads up on NFCU. I actually do have several veterans in the family and my SO is in the Navy so I went ahead and opened an account with them!

Outside of NFCU, I opened a secured credit card after posting this today. I also just got prequalified for NFCU's secured card, which look like a great option and one I'm definitely going to take advantage of! Unfortunately I only have about three months with the loaner, but hopefully what I'm doing is enough to get the ball rolling to better credit.

Re: Rebuilding after DV

CaneVariant — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 01:00:57 GMT

That is awesome! Check out the SSL offering. I set one for 60 months but since you are going to be buying a car you can get one for a smaller term and then pay it off. Figure out how much you can "spare" and divide by $50 which is the minimum payment. For example if you want a 1 year point boost opoen up a SSL for $600 and then when you receive the funds pay it down to $60 set auto pay to $6 set and forget. It got me ~ 30 points on a fresh BK7 file. All the $ put up as collateral gets back in your account in less than a month. Hope it works as well for you as it did for me. Treat that secured card right and it will grow.

Re: Rebuilding after DV

FicoMike0 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 04:27:48 GMT

Ditto @CaneVariant on the ssl. I did one with penfed, also got a 30 point boost. Navy is big on relationships, a ssl also adds a relationship. Another easy one is their easy start certificate. It's a CD you can open with $50. Can add more later, but don't have to. For $50, you have another account with them. A lot of members get reasonable auto loans from them.