Ex Took My Score Too!

[Anonymous]

I am wondering if someone can offer suggestions to my dilemma.?

I went through a divorce a few years back and my ex never paid any debts, but I paid them all and on time.

I was eventually awarded all debt by the judge. (Property settlement took 5 years!)

Here is my problem.

We had lots of mortgage debt on rent houses and large lines of credit. Our credit score average was in the high 700’s.

Before the judge ruled, the ex had called the banks and he told them to decrease the line limits to the balances owed. They did and continue to reduce the limit available with each payment I make. This had a drastic impact on my credit score, so my credit card companies followed suit, and began decreasing my limits on credit cards.

I have never had one late payment on anything in my life, but now it looks like I am maxed out on everything, because technically I am.

I couldn’t get an installment loan to pay these off because the judge had not ruled and by the time he did, my credit score was already shot.

This is so frustrating to me.  My credit score is now in the low 500’s!

Any suggestions on how to deal with this would be appreciated.

.

[Anonymous]

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Are any late payments reported on the cards, or is this just an issue of the CCCs lowering the denominator (your credit lines) of the utilization "fraction" in lock-step with you lowering the numerator (your balances)?

For starters, I would call the customer care lines of the CCCs and escalate to supervisors if need be to register your displeasure with what they're doing. Tell them that eventually you'll get the balances to zero, and cut up the cards and never do business with them again if they insist on playing these games. Tell them that you'll also be writing letters to the media about their pratices.

You could also try getting another credit card, and keep the balance on it super-low. That would at least help your total utilization figure.

In any event, once you hit zero and cancel the cards, their game is up. Why they're doing this to you is beyond my understanding.