Improve my credit score - HELP

[Anonymous]

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Timothy wrote:
Any chance of SL forgiveness given your disability?

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I'm already pursuing this route.  Unfortunately, it is a Sallie Mae account.  They know of my disabilities and I have to prove that mine has progressed since I took up the loan.

They won't forgive a loan because you're permanently disabled.  The idea is, you were already disabled when you picked up the loan.  Either I had to become disabled after the loan or my disabilities has to become worse since the loan.

The first time, I approached Sallie Mae on the SL, I erred by not clearly saying my disabilities has progressed.  They rejected on the grounds I described above.  I found out that I can resubmit a "Total Disability Disbursement" form.  I did this and explained clearly what happened.  My doctor sent in the paperworks with my eye report from Will's Eyes back in the beginning of June.

I'm waiting to hear from them.

In the meantime, I had to start some kind of payment in lieu of this forgiveness.

[Anonymous]

Speaking of SL & Sallie Mae, I get a computerized call from them.  I called their # and was immediately routed to NCO Finance. 

During my conversation with a rep, I found out that Sallie Mae was saying they agreed to the $75 per month.  However, they added $96 interest on top of it. 

That is right, Sallie Mae wants $171 per month and not $75 per month.  They know that I collect SSDI.  The Sallie Mae lon in question is a private loan.  My federal loan with them can be forgiven; however it seems I'm stuck with the private loan.

Oh boy, I wished I never gone to Al Collins College for I've had nothing but grief from doing this.  The total private loan is about $5700. 

The NCO rep did tell me to attempt to save enough $$ to make a major down payment or settlement.

[Anonymous]

When I bought my credit report via myFico Standard, I got my credit score from all three credit agency.  The scores are dated 6/11/07:

EX = 545

TU = 573

EQ = 643

I decided to have a "heart to heart" talk with Experian about my credit report.

On the myFICO copy of my Experian report, my Discover card was in the Open account and yet paid.  On the myFICO copy of Equifax, Discover is correctly listed as a CLOSED account.

According to Experian, my Discover account is in the Closed Account area. When I had inquired about the Sallie Mae stuff in the Open portion of my EX credit report via myFICO, I was told that the balance of 4,609 wasn't there. 

The lady from Experian is sending me a copy of a current Experian CR.  In about 10 business days, I should have it.

Question??  What is going on here?  How current is the report generated by myFICO?  How long does it take for a Credit Bureau to update their records?  After all, it is now 6/15/07. 

[Tuscani]

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BarryB wrote:

When I bought my credit report via myFico Standard, I got my credit score from all three credit agency.  The scores are dated 6/11/07:

EX = 545

TU = 573

EQ = 643

I decided to have a "heart to heart" talk with Experian about my credit report.

On the myFICO copy of my Experian report, my Discover card was in the Open account and yet paid.  On the myFICO copy of Equifax, Discover is correctly listed as a CLOSED account.

According to Experian, my Discover account is in the Closed Account area. When I had inquired about the Sallie Mae stuff in the Open portion of my EX credit report via myFICO, I was told that the balance of 4,609 wasn't there. 

The lady from Experian is sending me a copy of a current Experian CR.  In about 10 business days, I should have it.

Question??  What is going on here?  How current is the report generated by myFICO?  How long does it take for a Credit Bureau to update their records?  After all, it is now 6/15/07. 

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Did you buy an updated copy from MyFICO? The copy you bought on 6/11 is just for that point in time and will not update.

[Anonymous]

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Tuscani wrote:

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BarryB wrote:

When I bought my credit report via myFico Standard, I got my credit score from all three credit agency.  The scores are dated 6/11/07:

EX = 545

TU = 573

EQ = 643

I decided to have a "heart to heart" talk with Experian about my credit report.

On the myFICO copy of my Experian report, my Discover card was in the Open account and yet paid.  On the myFICO copy of Equifax, Discover is correctly listed as a CLOSED account.

According to Experian, my Discover account is in the Closed Account area. When I had inquired about the Sallie Mae stuff in the Open portion of my EX credit report via myFICO, I was told that the balance of 4,609 wasn't there. 

The lady from Experian is sending me a copy of a current Experian CR.  In about 10 business days, I should have it.

Question??  What is going on here?  How current is the report generated by myFICO?  How long does it take for a Credit Bureau to update their records?  After all, it is now 6/15/07. 

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Did you buy an updated copy from MyFICO? The copy you bought on 6/11 is just for that point in time and will not update.

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I just used the report that I purchased from myFICO on 6/11.  As I was not looking to use an updated FICO score, I saw no reason to get yet another CR. 

I was more concern with the CR's content.  It'll be nice to see if I get a more cleaner report than what I saw from 6/11. 

Interestingly enough, TU was very similar to EQ and had a 70pt difference.  TU had one more account and an inquiry from Premier Bank.  In fact, I got a pre-approved CC from them.  After seeing the fees and the low $250 credit limit, I dumped the card in the trash.

[Anonymous]

When I came back to this forum, I see that my last post was in June of 2007.  Time for some updates and to give some praises to God.

I originally had 4 student loans showing on my CR.  One was with NY Higher Education and its affiliate General Revenue Corporation.  I submitted a Total Disability Disbursement request based on both disability and income.  My request was approved!!  I no longer owe $$ to NYHES. Thank you Jesus!

As for the other three, I contacted Sallie Mae and found that they didn't get the paperworks from the doctor's office.  This was on August 9.  I called the doctor and asked them to fax in all the paperwork to the fax # I was given.  Since the first was forgiven, I have faith that God will deliver on these.

Simply put, it came down to the three Ps:

1. Prayer - There was a lot of this going on.
2. Persistent - I had to keep going and not give up.
3. Patience - It takes time for things to hapen.

Message Edited by BarryB on 08-16-2007 03:56 PM

[Anonymous]

Capitol One is fairly easy to get a card from -- just watch your mail.  However, they haven't been reporting the credit limits, so until they do that, what they report is not very helpful to someone wanting to improve a credit score -- currently, for a Cap One account the credit bureaus don't include Cap One when figuring your total available credit and also use your "high" balance instead of your limit to determine what % of your credit you are using on that card even if you have a much higher actual limit, and doing both those hurts your credit rating.  (Cap One is supposed to be reporting CL's as of 8/1/07, but I can tell you that my Cap One limit did not show up when I ran my new Credit report that showed my Cap One card information from billing date 8/3/07).  Some Cap One fc rates are decent.  Others are quite high.  Accounts with balances at 50% or more of the credit limit will impact your score negatively.

CB's like for a consumer to have a good "mix" of credit lines (CL):  retail store accounts, loans, as well as credit cards. 

For whatever credit cards/accounts you use, try to keep any balance on each card at no more than 25% of the credit limit (10% would be better, and 0% when billed is ideal).  Keep in mind that if you have only one card and it has a billed balance, you are using 100% of your cards, which affects your score negatively.  If you are able to have two credit cards, you should plan to pay one or both completely each month so that you would have balances on at most 50% of your CC accounts.  With two cards you could allow a balance on each to be billed in alternate months but make no charges at all the following month on that card so that you pay the card in full before the due date and have a zero balance the following months so they would not charge you any interest.  Keep making all your required payments on your current loans/accounts to build up good history on those. 

I avoid permitting automatic charges to my credit cards, but I do pay my electric bill and my cell phone bill by charging them to my credit card when they are due, and membership dues for any organization you may belong to might also be charged to a credit card.  I pay my electric and cell phone myself using my Citicard on the Citicard credit card customer access website with no extra charge/fee.  Don't ever request a credit line increase because they will check your credit if you do that, and if you are refused the increase, your score drops because of the "hit" on your credit. If you keep paying the card, some lenders could decide to raise your limit without even checking your credit info, and that would help your score -- you don't have to make big charges, they are mainly looking at whether you keep paying them -- but it doesn't seem to work that way with Cap One (they have been very stingy with increases).  Don't carry your credit cards with you or you may be tempted to use them too much -- just use one of the cards each month to pay anything you can pay by credit card through the credit card's website or by contacting the customer service number for whatever you want to pay -- make sure that there is not an added "convenience" charge when you make a payment that way.  Make these charges to your card just after the card has been billed for the month and after you know what the amount is that you owe, pay off the credit card in full several days before the billing date when they will be billing those charges to you -- so that your account will show a zero balance when you receive the bill.  That way you are paying the same dollars as you would have paid anyway, keeping the balance on your card at zero, and paying no interest, plus you keep the card on your credit profile as a good item with perfect history.  (Credit cards that have no activity in the past 6 months may be closed by the issuer.  BoA did that to one of my cards once but I called and they agreed to reopen it. Now I make sure that I make a small charge and pay it off right away so that the card will still show as active and I keep it at a zero balance to keep down the percent of my cards with balances.  It has such a high interest rate that I don't want to use that card for much.)

Avoid opening a new checking account.  The bank will check your credit report (even if you are told they will not) and it will count as a "hard" hit - Wells Fargo did that to me when all I did was transfer money from one WF checking account to open another WF checking account!  Having a potential lender check your credit will put a ding in your credit score -- the fewer the better.  No more than two over the past 24 months is what the CB's think is OK.  When you are issued a new credit card account, the CL on that card will increase your available credit and give your credit score a nice boost.  However, if you run up a balance and the card is billed showing that even a moderate percent of your credit limit is being used, you will wipe out the boost and your score may drop further. 

Don't close older credit cards.  Just having accounts that are several years old is beneficial to your credit score.  It makes no sense, but even if it is a baddie, if an old account drops off your credit report that may drop your score because length of history is "so important". 

[ronq]

Try calling Discover and asking them to reopen your account. Their CSRs are usually very polite and helpful. They may reopen your acount if it was in good standing without pulling a CR.

[Anonymous]

where do you get a "Total Disability Disbursement" form?

Thx

[Anonymous]

Very nice report Barry....And I agree all praises to God...