Help and Suggestions On Where to Start with this Credit Report

[Iusedtolurk]

Hi everyone.

I have come a long way with my credit rebuilding and have still a ways to go but I always talk to people about the valuable information aquired through this forum.

Long story short I offered my help to one of my cousins to get his credit journey started.

I looked at his credit report to find out what is giving him his current scores (Vantage 3 for now through Credit Karma (524,517) not ready to pay for Ficos and just needing a general look at what's in the reports.

I knew he was out of the credit world for a long time (no accounts what-so-ever).

So I thought we would start with a secured card or two.

To my surprise he has a host of medical collections showing. I know we can probably start with an Opensky secured card to get a positive tradeline but I don't even know how to start with these collections.

Any help and suggestions is greatly appreciated.

[ccquest]

The bottom bunch (everything but the top) is $1625 and the majority look pretty recent. Any chance you could reach out to the CA and see if they'll do a PFD type deal and maybe a payment plan on the top one?

Has he had any other credit outside of these medical charges?

[AllZero]

@gdale6wrote:
There are some extra things that can be done with those medicals
Medical collections are some of the easiest to get removed from your CRs, here are the steps that you should follow to address them:

1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs. If not then
2. see if you qualify for Charity Care, if not then
3. ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
4. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
5. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help, this process cannot be discussed in any forum of myFico.

[AllZero]

$1 you can obtain your 3 bureau FICO 8 scores and reports at Experian or CreditCheckTotal (part of Experian). Cancel in 7 day or less to avoid the re-occurring monthly charge. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat as needed.

AnnualCreditReport. Free weekly 3 bureau online reports through April 2021.

Free credit reports (disregard the VantageScore 3.0 score) at:
Credit Karma for weekly TU and EQ reports.
WalletHub for daily TU report.

[Iusedtolurk]

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@ccquest wrote:
The bottom bunch (everything but the top) is $1625 and the majority look pretty recent. Any chance you could reach out to the CA and see if they'll do a PFD type deal and maybe a payment plan on the top one?

Has he had any other credit outside of these medical charges?

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He paid off a car and house but those dropped off so no accounts reflecting now.  I believe he will have to reach out to the CA to see if he can pay them off and get them removed from the reports. Most of them coming from one CA.

[Iusedtolurk]

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@AllZero wrote:

$1 you can obtain your 3 bureau FICO 8 scores and reports at Experian or CreditCheckTotal (part of Experian). Cancel in 7 day or less to avoid the re-occurring monthly charge. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat as needed.

AnnualCreditReport. Free weekly 3 bureau online reports through April 2021.

Free credit reports (disregard the VantageScore 3.0 score) at:
Credit Karma for weekly TU and EQ reports.
WalletHub for daily TU report.

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Took a look at his other reports basically the same no credit accounts but a few less collections.  Told him to start saving a few dollars where he can be in the position to pay off all the small collections (around 1600) with a pay for delete agreement and then work on the one big one (2700).

In the meanwhile I told him we will try to get some positive tradelines going.

Had him check Cap1 prequal and the offer was for a secured card so had him apply and CONGRATS you're approved came up, now I will have him go for the Opensky with no credit pull and a Selflender account for 2 years with no credit pull..

That will give him 2 revolvers and 1 installment to work on for about 6 months to help his score w/1 hardpull across the bureaus.

[ccquest]

I know OpenSky and Credit One have their place for some people, but I'm not sure that it'll help while he has that many outstanding collection accounts. That is where the damage is coming from here. If you can fix those as planned, I'd be fairly confident in his ability to get approved for some other unsecured card in the 6-12 month timeline. Neither of those graduates, but I would avoid the AF Opensky card at least.

Who does he bank with and has he tried getting a card there? Assuming he has no over drafts or other penalties on that account at least.

edit » just came across this other post that mentions a Chime secured card that could be another way to go since it requires no credit check and may report as a NPSL card instead. He may be able to be "flexible" with the deposit amount for the card in case other situations come up. And no fees.