What to do next - Rebuilding but stuck

[mithrildreams]

I was approved and received two Captial one cards in January.  My initial credit limit was low but I have gotten one credit line increase each.  One has a credit line of 800 and the other is 1500.  I haven't paid late on any bills since 2013 but I do have charge-offs from two years ago when I got sick.  I applied for a Discover, and Paypal synchrony and was turned down.  I don't want any other inquiries without knowing what I am looking at.  I'm pretty sure the scores below are Fako but I'm not sure how to get the real scores.  I know I need one more account to maximize the credit benefits of a revolving account.   Also, my scores haven't changed much at all even with two new cards with 10% utilization.  Verve sent me a pre-approved app today but they look preditory. Thanks for any help or advice you can give me.

I have 15 negatives

1 is a 60 day late mortgage payment in 10/2013

8 charge offs in 2013 (capitol one, credit one, merrick, amazon, paypal, walmart, and wells fargo)

6  collection agencies

My scores show as Equifax:  579 (as of today)  Transunion:   551  Experian:  559

[KSK1912]

i have been rebuilding for the past year as well. So i know exactly what you are going thru. When i started last year june my Fico scores were 500's across the board. In less than a year i was able to get my scores up to 700+ I did mainly 2 things to achieve this. One was getting rid of bad items, and 2 was adding new trade lines. Now the first and the most important thing is you need to get a membership here at MyFico and pull your first report along with your real Fico scores. This will show you exactly what is being reported, all the accounts in your credit report, your real fico scores and more. If you don't know where you are standing right now, it will be hard  for you to advance in the right direction. Once you get your credit report, go over it one by one. Look at each account, make sure everything being reported is accurate. You are lucky to have those 2 cards from Cap One because i can not think of any other lender that will approve you with all the baddies you have, maybe except Credit one and similar companies which everyone here will tell you to definitely stay away from. Do not apply for any credit at the moment. There are a few tricks that you can use to get a few positive trade lines added to your credit report without having your credit pulled. Search the forums for SCT or shopping cart trick. Try and see if you can get a few accounts with them. Some people may tell you store cards will not help you much, but believe me they helped me a lot. I kinda overdid it and got 13 accounts lats august that added up to maybe around $3K credit and now without doing anything, those credit lines add up to $10K. SCT is one way you can try to add positive accounts to your credit report.

As for the bad stuff, one way or another you have to get rid of them. Paying a collection alone will not help as much as paying it getting it deleted from your reports. Try to negaotiate with the CA's. See if they would agree to delete the accounts if you pay them. There is a lot that can be said here but it would take forever. So to looking at your post, you need to focus on 2 things mainly, getting rid of the bad, adding the good.

[mithrildreams]

Agreed, some of the baddies are double hits.  One from the credit card and one from the collection agency.   I'll just garden for a little while and get an account at myfico instead of the Equifax I have now.

[Anonymous]

Its going to hard to get anything for awhile, agreed lucky to have 2 cards from cap1. I dont even think credit one will approve.

I would nurture those and build the heck outta them, maybe a credit union line of credit or a auto loan wd help build profile.

Other than that only time will help score, as the baddies fall off you will see good jumps in scores.

[KSK1912]

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@mithrildreams wrote:

Agreed, some of the baddies are double hits.  One from the credit card and one from the collection agency.   I'll just garden for a little while and get an account at myfico instead of the Equifax I have now.

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I had the same problem too. Who is the CA for your cap one account? Please dont say Portfolio Recovery Ass.?

[mithrildreams]

Yep, it is portfolio Associates.  In fact I think they have three files opened on me.  I did challenge some of the entries.  I can't understand how you can be double hit like that and it be ok to do.  Anyways, I'm counting myself lucky and tossing the verve application.

[delaney1]

You can get a $1 seven day trial at creditchecktotal.com to get your real  FICO scores for all 3 bureaus. Myfico is great as well, but unless you need auto, mortgage, etc, etc fico scores right just do the creditchecktotal.com  and cancel at the end of the trial. 

[MyLoFICO]

Take it from someone who has been in your shoes, don’t over app. Grow your Capital 1 cards and let that old stuff age. Your have a lot of negatives. I did/do too. I hate waiting but it has to happen. If you take the wrong steps trying to rush this you can make your wait even longer. I added 12 months to mine.

[kjm79]

Head over to the rebuilding forum on this site. List all of your negatives and members can you give tips on dealing with each baddie.

For your reports, first thing to do (if you haven't already) is pull your free annual credit report from each agency. Go to annualcreditreport.com . You get one free report from each agency once a year. These reports will be the most inclusive and most accurate with the information. Go over them with a fine tooth comb. Look for anything that is inaccurate and work on disputing those inaccuracies. These reports will also tell you when you can expect a baddie to fall off your reports. This becomes important when rebuilding because if someting is close to falling off, it can be better to do nothing with that account and just let it age off. Once you get all the inaccuries taken care of, going forward, only request your one annual report on a quarterly basis. This way, you can have access to your main report at least once every 3 months instead of waiting a year. You can sign up here for monitoring, or credit check total. Both will give you FICO scores. For general monitoring of your reports Credit Karma will give you TU and EQ reports for free (scores are not FICOs) and Credit .com will give you EX (score is not a FICO). 

Definitley try to get a personal line of credit or personal loan from a credit union. You probably will have to do a secured loan. This will add an open installment account on your report which will add to your credit mix. Grow your Capital One cards, show them love and they'll return the favor. Let some of your baddies age and/or fall off, let your Cap1 cards age a little more. When scores come up you'll have other options to add to your credit profile. It just takes some time and waiting can be so hard! 

[mithrildreams]

I decided to give the shopping cart trick a try. I got $1000 from overstock so I think I'm good for now.  I want to grow and garden what I have.  Also going to head over to the rebuilding community and see what I can do about the negatives.