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Hello all!
New here so forgive me if I do anything "wrong". I am trying to get my husbands credit cleaned up as we desperately need to secure a car loan. One of our cars is on it's last leg and I don't think it will last much longer. We have spent the past year paying off debt (that wasn't past the statue of limitation) as I knew was no way we would be able to secure a loan with balance positive collection accounts. So we paid off all of the old collections (none of which would delete for payment). He has one card on there that is in MY name (he was a authorized user but the account isn't his). I know I am going to have to dispute in writing to get this account removed. I've been reading about the 609 disputing process and I think I'm going to give it a whirl, however after further review I'm a little nervous to use that. Everything on his account his paid (except the card that isn't his) but it would be really nice to just get the negative accounts removed entirely! He has 4-5 small collections (hospital bill, old cable bill, old cell phone bill) one BS (gr I still get mad when I think about how they screwed us!!) judgement from 2013, and one foreclosure from 2012. Any ideas on how we can get his report cleaned up? Is 609 a good tool to use? We desperately need a car loan and I am afraid that we won't qualify. We have one credit card that we opened 9/2015 that we have followed all of the "rules" with. That is our only revolving credit. I'm sure we could secure another card, but I want to be picky about the cards we open and want a better score to shop around a little on futurecards. Any advice is appreciated
Thanks so much!!
I don't recommend using any credit repair companies. They just do things you can do yourself for free, and from what I've heard, may do things improperly that can make situations worse, or have the negatives come right back.
Have you considered purchasing another used vehicle with your down payment? This would give you time to work on the credit repair and give you something to drive. If you held onto it for a year, you'd have plenty of time to work on your credit profiles, build positive histories with secured cards, and save an additional down payment on top of the trade-in.
I promise you do not want a sub-prime auto loan.
Thank you I was planning to do it myself. We have been through several cheap cars over the years and we are just ready to have something nice and reliable. At this point I think we would qualify for a loan (score is around 620ish) but I know it probably would not be the BEST loan. He has a handful of negative accounts, 1 positive revolving, and a handful of positive revolving that are closed. I was thinking if we could get rid of a few negatives before we go for a loan it would only boost our chances and rates even more so that's what I'm trying to do now. I am curious what you consider a sub-prime auto loan, though? I've never had a car payment in my life so this is a first for me and I will take all of the advice I can get. I certainly do not want to get into a crappy loan!
After not getting a reply last night I went for it, we have to get this loan moving I'm not sure our car will last much longer! I mailed off the first letter today. I didn't order a package or anything, just drafted a letter as best I could from Google (I read this is best anyways, if you use a predetermined template it is more likely to be flagged as spam, so if you do use the templates I would at least move or change some of the basic wording around, not the legal stuff). The only negative things I have read are just from people basically saying it's a waste of time, but has no personal experience. I haven't read anything from someone who has tried it with no luck. So fingers crossed it goes well. I will certainly keep you updated!
Can you tell us a little bit more about your negatives and positives? You could have some more improvements by having more positive accounts open. The scores you mentioned are they FICO or FAKOs (Credit Karma is FAKO)?
I only checked FICO once in Decemeber thus far, and it was 619 while I was pulling the credit. I try to stay away from FAKO! Here is a list of the negatives
1. Collection from Comcast
Date opened 8/2016
$0 balance
2. Hospital bill
Date opened 7/2014
$0 balance
3. AT&T
Date opened 2011
$0 balance
4. Sprint
Date opened 1/2015
$0 balance
5. Chase Mortgage
FORCLOSURE
Forclosure started in 1/2012
They sold the house for almost the full balance so they wrote the difference off (about 10k)
6.Judgement
Date opened 1/2014
$0 balance
7. Credit card collection
This is not his account, it's mine he was an authorized user on the account but it is not his.
Date opened 2011
$550 balance
Positives aren't a lot
We have one American express credit card that we opened 9/2015 it has a $800 credit limit and around a $100 balance
He has a car loan that he opened in either 2010 or 2011 which was fully satisifed and never late
He has 2 other car loans and a few credit cards that are also positive but they are very old, like over 7 yrs ago.
Main issue is we need to obtain a car loan ASAP. I don't think our other car is going to go much longer, we have spent the past year paying off all of his collection accounts and none of them would delete for pay. My credit isn't terrible, and I could open more cards and add him as a user but I don't want to go opening a bunch of cards because I know it's not great to close them so I want to be semi picky about any cards we open in the future.
Try Capital One. We just purchased a vehicle through them a couple months ago at 6% which was better than the places the dealer tried. Husbands score was 565 at the time. I would suggest if you are going to buy or lease a new car that you ask around on Facebook and other places online if anyone works for the manufacturer of the vehicle you are looking at. They might be willing to give you a pin that is for friends and neighbors that will help get money off the vehicle.
@Anonymous wrote:Hello all!
New here so forgive me if I do anything "wrong". I am trying to get my husbands credit cleaned up as we desperately need to secure a car loan. One of our cars is on it's last leg and I don't think it will last much longer. We have spent the past year paying off debt (that wasn't past the statue of limitation) as I knew was no way we would be able to secure a loan with balance positive collection accounts. So we paid off all of the old collections (none of which would delete for payment). He has one card on there that is in MY name (he was a authorized user but the account isn't his). I know I am going to have to dispute in writing to get this account removed. I've been reading about the 609 disputing process and I think I'm going to give it a whirl, however after further review I'm a little nervous to use that. Everything on his account his paid (except the card that isn't his) but it would be really nice to just get the negative accounts removed entirely! He has 4-5 small collections (hospital bill, old cable bill, old cell phone bill) one BS (gr I still get mad when I think about how they screwed us!!) judgement from 2013, and one foreclosure from 2012. Any ideas on how we can get his report cleaned up? Is 609 a good tool to use? We desperately need a car loan and I am afraid that we won't qualify. We have one credit card that we opened 9/2015 that we have followed all of the "rules" with. That is our only revolving credit. I'm sure we could secure another card, but I want to be picky about the cards we open and want a better score to shop around a little on futurecards. Any advice is appreciated
Thanks so much!!
Since you have already paid the collection accounts, I'd suggest sending GW letters to all of them requesting GW removal. You may need to do them on a monthly schedule until they agree to remove. There are lots of examples in the Forum of GW letters.
As for judgements and foreclosures, I don't have direct experience, so hopefully you can find information on the Forum that can help (or others can respond).
To help improve your credit, I'd recommend picking up another CC. With your current scores of ~620, you might be able to get something like Cap One's QS1; try their pre-qualifier to see. Then you'd want to optimize your UTIL to help.
Since you mentioned DH has positive auto loan histories, you may also want to consider lenders who use auto-enhanced scores. You should definitely look around the Auto Loan forum for info on that.