Hello, Thank you for all the useful information, it has helped change my behavior
A little about myself, never cared anything about credit or paying bills on time. I was never taught the importance of these issues infact no one in my family seemed to care either. Before I turned 18 I had utilities in my name with huge past due balances. Because of this atititude all 3 CRA's were below 415 at age 19. When you're scores are that low, living day to day is exhausting. Dispite knowing that my credit was so bad I would continue to apply for new credit. I can remember sitting in a car dealership trying to get a new car with zero miles on it (makes me laugh now) I really thought there was a chance. The finance guy pulled my report and 20 pages printed. I was so embarrased. But that didn't stop me. I applied at several more car lots until I got a car loan. A 8 year old car with over 100,000 miles on it for $8995 with a 29.9% APR, payable every two weeks on payday. At the timeI was make $8/hr 30 hr/wk.
As of 2003 my scores were still around 420. I knew I had to do something but wasn't sure what. I started searching the net, reading books and found that before anything could improve I had to change my way of thinking, I had to be willing to make scarifices and I had to stop fooling myself into thinking everything was ok. I had to stop worrying about the time it was going to take (the time is going to pass anyway, might as well do something now no matter how small).
I started paying on time (still had some lates but not nearly has many), got some secured cc's always on time with about 20-25% util, planning to go down to less than 10% for next months reporting. I disputed and got alot of neg info removed.
my fico scores are now exp 608, eq 638 tu 508
What continues to hurt me is my electric bill ( They report in my state) I made an arrangement to combine the old bills to get them paid finally. What happens is they report as current as long as I get it in by the due date of the arrangement, but say the due date falls on a wednesday and I get paid on friday and can't pay until then. The reporting is based on my account on the due date and because some of the invoices in the arrangement are very old it reports as 120 past due but when My payment hits it reports the following month as ok.
I also don't know what to do about how the electric company list on my tu report all my old accounts (5 in total) that I have combined into my current account show as 0 balance account status open. Is this hurting me.
Last thing is that I have 6 collection accounts left. I pay one every month and my score drops each time the balance says 0 but the status says not reported. Is this correct and what is a PFD, how do you request it.
Thanks for everyone's comments they really have changed my life.
