Hi everyone. My name is Amanda, and I'm from Kansas. I've been lurking and reading the boards avidly since July 6 (what a great community here!). I pulled all 3 bureaus on Friday and got: Equifax: 582 (ow!), TU: 620. and Experian: 643. I have a general question, and a specific question.
I've been doing my own form of credit repair for about the past 9 months. I paid off some old collections (never heard of PFD before, sigh) and opened a Firestone card. I hadn't used or qualified for credit for years, but my car needed some significant work done, and the cashier told me that they approve EVERYONE. I had collections (some of them recent due to a layoff) and 2(!) judgments...and they still issued me a card with a 400 dollar limit...they do not seem to report limits though, so for utilization purposes it only makes sense to get this if you need tires or some work done that will show the limit. I think. I'm pretty new to this, so there may be other advantages.
Then I got some offers in the mail and currently hold: HSBC Mastercard with a 300 dollar limit (paid on time and in full since April) and BOA US Airways with a 500 dollar limit (just received and hasn't even billed yet).
Then I pulled my FICO which was actually better than I expected. I spent all Sunday afternoon writing PFD and GW letters to various collection agencies. Some items I think I will have to dispute because I can't get any info about the original creditor. Which brings me to the general question: is there anything else I should be doing other than what I'm working on now? I've read a whole bunch of threads, and it looks like that is the best thing for me to do now.
And then there is Curves. I had a Curves membership in 2002 and 2003 that was autodebited from my savings account. When I stopped being able to pay it, it overdrafted twice, then I requested to cancel the membership, but didn't pay them back (and stopped using the account)...and apparently they tried to pull it for a total of SEVEN months.
So I have 7 different collection actions all with the same check-processing company, for 61 dollars each for a total of 427, and they all show as different line items. There is no contact info for the company given by TransUnion. I tried to call the original location, and they've gone out of business.
Should I just enter disputes for all of these? And if so, can I do it in one letter or will that be considered frivolous? Should I wait and dispute them one at a time?
I would really appreciate any insight anyone has on this.