Thanks so much to everyone who contributes to this forum. I have been reading for a month or so, and I feel much more prepared to start tackling our credit problems. My husband and I are hoping to buy a house next year, but we face an uphill battle in improving his scores enough to do so. He has had a lot of problems with late payments in the past. I have taken over paying all of our bills, and we are up to date on everything now, but his scores have taken a bit hit. As of 10/2 when I pulled them, his scores were: EQ-543, EX-517, TU-518. Yikes!
I am all set to send 3 PFD letters and 2 GWs to hopefully get things on the upswing. But I have a couple questions about some other things on his report. Please bear with me, this will be long -
The biggest hit he is taking on his credit is from Citibank for student loans. He originally had 7 different loans with them (for different semesters, he paid as one loan). He lost his job in early 2004 and got very behind on his payments. Unfortunately, he is now showing 120 days late on all 7 of these accounts for that period. At that point, he consolidated into 2 loans, and got current. Fast forward to late 2006. We moved across country for my job, and he was out of work again. He faxed paperwork in for a forbearance, but never checked to see if they got it. It did not go through. So he was late again, and unfortunately, they filed for default. Before it went through, he contacted them, and they repurchased the loan. He has been paying on time since (sadly, only 2 months now). But it now shows as "claim filed with government for insured portion of balance on loan." The other problem is that since they repurchased the loan, it is on a new tl, so the old ones do not show current status. This is also the case with the 7 that were consolidated - they show the past negative payments, but the 3 years of good payments are not on those tls.
So this is a huge negative, and I'm not sure if we have any recourse now. I was wondering if I might have any luck in getting the old, consolidated accounts removed. I'm not sure if this would be a GW letter or something else? Do I have any hope of getting the claim removed since it never actually went through,and he is now paying on time?
The second question is about two collections notices he has received that are not showing up on his credit report (yet?). The first is for what we think is a repurchase of a very old (like '95) credit card. They are demanding payment of $1600. He does not think we should do anything since the original debt is over 7 years old. But I'm afraid since the letter is from this summer, that it could end up on the credit. The last thing he needs is another collections account on his report. Is this one that should be disputed? If they do validate the debt it could start showing up on the report right? Should we just ignore it?
The second is from last year, he owes $800, but they are offering a charge off of $400. It also is not yet showing up on his credit yet. We actually have the money now to pay off both of these old accounts, but I'm not sure if it is in our best interest. I was going to send a PFD letter to the $800 one, but then realized it isn't on his report. Is there any such thing as a pay to prevent any listing on CR? I just would hate to pay now, and then have this show up as a paid collection, and have lost the power of the PFD. But I also don't want an unpaid collection showing up. Does that make any sense?
Any suggestions?
Also, I'm curious if anyone knows the answer to this one. I am hopfully getting a raise early next year, and that will put my salary at a little higher than my husband's. Does anyone know if I am the primary person on t
