I have been in the process of trying to repair my credit since my ex and I split in March 2003 and stopped making credit payments in October 2003. All the accounts have been closed and I have been working with a debt company that has been settling the accounts. So far, 100,000 have been setteld for about 60,000 as I've put more than half my income towards these accounts over the past 2.5 years. Have one left for 16,000 that has gone up to 20,000 over time and hope to settle it over the next few months. These accounts were supposed to appear on my credit report as settled or something like that, but all these accounts are showing up as a charge offs. Some went to Collections, and some bounced around to different people, but all but the last have been paid. How do I go about having these changed? I have the original settlement letters from the creditors or collection people saying that if I make x number of payments in x amount on these dates, it will be settled. I was expecting them to send me confirmation that everything was paid, but I never received any. I guess I could have copies of the cleared checks pulled. Should I contact each one and say hey look up my account it was settled and I want a letter confirming that? Does this work?
Does trying to change the terminology to something other than charge off even make a difference in the credit report/score?
I have been using 1 CC and have made payments on time since May 2003 trying to keep the balance under 50%, got a FICO score of 610 now, paid off my last car loan 10.7% over 5 years last month, and am being told 12.75% on 12,000 used car loan. In addition to a used car, I would also like to buy a home in 2 years so want to try and improve my credit as much as possible.
Any advice would be appreciated?
Don
