I really don't know where to start, but here goes. Back in November, my husband and I went through a place called FDR (Freedom Debt Relief) to help us pay off some credit cards. We had four total that they were going to help with. My mom had went through a place like this before, and she pays her payment to them and then they pay each of her creditors until it's paid off. Well, I thought that's what this place was, but I found out differently. They were taking our money and putting it in a bank account and then waiting until we got enough money stockpiled in there to pay anything off. Needless to say, October of last year was the last time any money got paid to those credit cards.
Well, when my husband got a summons in the mail that he was being sued for the balance in municipal court for the one that had his name on it, we started checking things and found out what I just told you. Well, I took the bull by the horns so to speak, told FDR where to stick it and called our creditors and told them the problem and asked what I could do to rectify what had happened. The only thing they would accept at that point was a settlement that I had to pay in full. So my inlaws loaned us the money and we paid them all off. That was all a month ago, the end of July.
I wanted to see how bad that it hurt our score, and it's TERRIBLE. My TransUnion score is 593. After seeing that, I decided to do the score watch and the Equifax score came back as 561, which is even worse.
Here's my questions. When can I look for my score to improve? I know the bad payment history is now on my report for who knows how long probably, but as soon as those credit card companies show that the debt has been paid off, that should help, shouldn't it? How often do they report new balances, et cetera? Is there anything else I can do to help with this?
Thanks in advance for the replies!
Diana
