Advice on boosting FICO Score - Equifax score is 404!

[Anonymous]

I got married in September 2009 and my husband and I never discussed our financial situations. He has a great job, pays every bill on time and flawless credit. Me, on the other hand, I am a bit of a mess and don't know where to start.

Last night he mentioned wanting to refinance the mortgage due to better rates and I almost threw up in my mouth a little. I think he is going to hit the roof when he discovers my credit history.

I had a discharged bankruptcy in January 2009. (He doesn't know this either).

My student loans (which had been past due), have been in a rehab program and they are now current, I've been working on this for over a year now.

I have a vehicle in my name, which I got financed during Chapter 7 since my previous vehicle was repo'd. I pay this on time every month.

But I'm not sure how I can get my credit score to improve - those are the only accounts that I have. All of the collection accounts listed were included in the BK (and it says so on the credit report). All the judgements listed were included in the BK - and show satisfied on the credit report.

I did just set up a secured credit card with Capital One today.

What can I do? Anything?

[guiness56]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Now is as good a time as any to let him know your credit is not perfect.

You can try to get the paid items removed with a good will letter.

[Anonymous]

What is a good will letter?

The other collection items that were included in the BK will just stay, right?

[guiness56]

It won't hurt to try and have them removed.  Even though they were included in the BK they stay on your report until the reporting time for that item is up.  It does not stay until the BK comes off.

I have seen others get some removed.

Goodwill Example Letters (GW): http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?bo​ard.id=generalcredit&thread.id=127809

[Anonymous]

How do I try to have the BK ones removed? With a goodwill letter?

[RobertEG]

I am not a personal counselor, and dont care to be one.

But I am a man who has lived many, many decades of mariital life, and know the importance of honesty in a relationship that is as strong as a marriage.

You dont have to be a personal counselor to know that  two of the three things that usually cause a marriage to falter (I wont get into sexual issues here) are honesty and finances.

Your now have what appears to be strike one, and potentially  compounded by srike two.

Joint application with him for new credit with you having a FICO score of 404 begs summary rejection.

If you want to continue to conceal, then use your charms to convince him to apply as the sole applicant.

If you apply jointly, he will see it all.  That is a given.

If he knows how to handle finances, come clean, make it a team effort, and let him help you.

[haulingthescoreup]

My advice would be first of all to get all these secrets out. And really, you should both be discussing finances. A partnership of any kind won't work if both parties don't understand their financial realities. Grit your teeth and go --it isn't going to get better by delaying.

Then take a weekend and do a lot of reading around here. Start with some of the stickied threads at the tops of the various forums, especially Credit 101. That's where you'll learn about GW (goodwill) letters and other things that you can try.

As for starting the road back, see if he will put you on one of his credit cards as a AU (authorized user), so that you will have some revolving credit reporting. I was an AU on one of my former husband's CC's (while we were married, lol), in order to add some age to my reports, but I never used it. My card just sat in my sock drawer.

And that touches on one of the most important bits: you need to understand what led you into your previous problems and start new ways of handling money, so that this doesn't happen again. This seems to be the hardest thing for people to intuitively "get" into their heads --in most cases, problems of this magnitude don't occur out of the blue, even if there was a disaster that made it worse. I've been on these forums long enough to see people come back a year later in the same trouble again, because they didn't address their emotions regarding money and change their behaviors.

You're not the first one in this situation. You can do it! Hope it all goes well for you.