Welcome to the forums @Anonymous
I relate a lot to your story, as I kept my head in the sand for so many years regarding my credit. I congratulate you for taking responsibility and all the progress you've made so far. I'm sure a lot of people here will have some great suggestions. From what I see in your profile, it seems like most of this will require time to heal. Lates and charge offs will keep your scores suppressed. How long have you had your current accounts (not including AUs)?
My biggest suggestion is to work on a budget and only charge what you can pay in full. Don't get in the habit of leaving balances on your cards again. It's a slippery slope and you'll end up back where you started. Work on being disciplined with your money. I would also suggest joining a credit union and building up your savings. Establish a relationship and you'll have some great options later down the road.
@Anonymous wrote:Hello everyone,
First of all since I discovered this forum a couple months ago I come on everyday now to look at all of the helpful information and other peoples stories. It is nice how everyone is very supportive of eachother.
Anyway here is my story.
Back in October of 2019 everything came to fruition. I had a judgement against me from Unifund from a charge of from Citibank and my paycheck was about to be garnished. I also had 2 other judgments pending from Portfolio Recovery but they hadnt been enforced yet.
Back in 2012/2013 I had a good job and was starting out with credit being in my early 20's at the time so I opened a bunch of credit in my name. I had an Amex card (2k limit), 2 capital one (500 limit and 1.5k limit), Citi Card (5k limit) and 2 chase cards (2 $1k limits). I then suddenly lost my job and for some reason I saw it as an invitation to keep spending on my cards. To sum it all up by 2014/2015 all of my cards had been maxed out, couldnt afford the payments, and I just let them all get charged off for some reason thinking it would all just go away.
Between 2015 and 2018 I decided to go to college full time since I got a part time IT job at the school district working 20-30 hrs per week. I was getting plenty of financial aid during these times so I didnt need cards to live. I would get my financial aid refunds and that would fund my life along with the part time job. I was just ignoring what had happened in the past. Then in 2018 I was served 3 times for 3 seperate cases and still dumb me thought this would dissapear. It wasnt until I got a notice from my employer that my wages were going to be garnished along with my car being repoed and redeemed in January of 2019. (Luckily I got a tax refund in time to get my car back. I had lied to my friends and parents that my car was just in the shop during that time). During these couple years I got payday loans, a secured card from Discover (500 limit), a secured card from my credit union (Schools First credit union for 1k), 2 small loans through my credit union (I only got these since I was a school employee and required no credit check, 2 $500 loans) and a loan through possible to "rebuild my credit". However clearly I hadnt changed and over time I let those charge off as well.
So now back to October 2019 I finally broke down and told my parents what was happening. My dad had a heart to heart with me because they had noticed I had been really tense the past couple months and wanted to make sure everything was ok. Obviously things were not ok. So once I laid out what has going on my parents graciously told me they would help get me out of this mess. They were going to help pay off half of my student loans as they had agreed to do with my sister also. So in lieu of paying part of my student loans getting out of this mess was worth it to me. At this time my credit scores were down in the 400's. I considered bankruptcy but I didnt feel right doing it and given the amount of debt it was it didnt seem worth it. Im glad I didnt do it.
So between October 2019 and June 2020 my scores have now improved to the 660 - 680 range.
Heres my credit profile now.
Settled Charge Offs:
AMEX
Discover
Chase Freedom
Chase Slate
Verizon Wireless
Paid in full charge offs:
Possible Finance
Schools First Loan 1
Schools FIrst Loan 2
Schools FIrst Secured Card
There were multiple collections accounts for capital one and citbank and I was able to have all those paid and removed. There are no collection accounts anymore on the credit reports.
My open credit lines now:
Credit One Bank - $300 limit - 0 balance
Wayfair Store Card (Comenity) - $1100 limit - 112 balance
Synchrony Store Card - $1237 limit - 420 balance
Kay Jewelers (GS Financial) - $1000 limit - 0 balance
Ford Credit - $13500 balance remaining - repo and redemption 1.5 years ago, 20 or so late payments, over 1 year straight of ontime payments
Citi Costco Card - 14k limit - 700 balance (Authorized User)
Synchrony Car Care Card - 5.5k limit - 999 balance (Authorized User, had blown transmission on car so had to get fixed, have paid down from 4k to 999)
All of the paid charge offs are due to fall off between august of 2020 - 2025 according to my experian report pulled from annual credit report.
Are there any suggestions on things I should do to improve my scores to bump up to the 700 range? Or is it a matter of just needing to make on time payments and let my scores improve? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated and thanks for reading my story.
My current FICO 8 Scores:
EX: 684
EQ: 678
TU: 661
Right now you have too many accounts with balances. Get them all paid down and have the Citi card be your less than 8% reporting card. As we say AZEO. All Zero Except One. FICO doesnt care for more than 50% of the total amount of cards reporting a balance. The rest just need to age. CO's are killers till they die off. but the older the better. Good Luck.
@Anonymous wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Hello everyone,
First of all since I discovered this forum a couple months ago I come on everyday now to look at all of the helpful information and other peoples stories. It is nice how everyone is very supportive of eachother.
Anyway here is my story.
Back in October of 2019 everything came to fruition. I had a judgement against me from Unifund from a charge of from Citibank and my paycheck was about to be garnished. I also had 2 other judgments pending from Portfolio Recovery but they hadnt been enforced yet.
Back in 2012/2013 I had a good job and was starting out with credit being in my early 20's at the time so I opened a bunch of credit in my name. I had an Amex card (2k limit), 2 capital one (500 limit and 1.5k limit), Citi Card (5k limit) and 2 chase cards (2 $1k limits). I then suddenly lost my job and for some reason I saw it as an invitation to keep spending on my cards. To sum it all up by 2014/2015 all of my cards had been maxed out, couldnt afford the payments, and I just let them all get charged off for some reason thinking it would all just go away.
Between 2015 and 2018 I decided to go to college full time since I got a part time IT job at the school district working 20-30 hrs per week. I was getting plenty of financial aid during these times so I didnt need cards to live. I would get my financial aid refunds and that would fund my life along with the part time job. I was just ignoring what had happened in the past. Then in 2018 I was served 3 times for 3 seperate cases and still dumb me thought this would dissapear. It wasnt until I got a notice from my employer that my wages were going to be garnished along with my car being repoed and redeemed in January of 2019. (Luckily I got a tax refund in time to get my car back. I had lied to my friends and parents that my car was just in the shop during that time). During these couple years I got payday loans, a secured card from Discover (500 limit), a secured card from my credit union (Schools First credit union for 1k), 2 small loans through my credit union (I only got these since I was a school employee and required no credit check, 2 $500 loans) and a loan through possible to "rebuild my credit". However clearly I hadnt changed and over time I let those charge off as well.
So now back to October 2019 I finally broke down and told my parents what was happening. My dad had a heart to heart with me because they had noticed I had been really tense the past couple months and wanted to make sure everything was ok. Obviously things were not ok. So once I laid out what has going on my parents graciously told me they would help get me out of this mess. They were going to help pay off half of my student loans as they had agreed to do with my sister also. So in lieu of paying part of my student loans getting out of this mess was worth it to me. At this time my credit scores were down in the 400's. I considered bankruptcy but I didnt feel right doing it and given the amount of debt it was it didnt seem worth it. Im glad I didnt do it.
So between October 2019 and June 2020 my scores have now improved to the 660 - 680 range.
Heres my credit profile now.
Settled Charge Offs:
AMEX
Discover
Chase Freedom
Chase Slate
Verizon Wireless
Paid in full charge offs:
Possible Finance
Schools First Loan 1
Schools FIrst Loan 2
Schools FIrst Secured Card
There were multiple collections accounts for capital one and citbank and I was able to have all those paid and removed. There are no collection accounts anymore on the credit reports.
My open credit lines now:
Credit One Bank - $300 limit - 0 balance
Wayfair Store Card (Comenity) - $1100 limit - 112 balance
Synchrony Store Card - $1237 limit - 420 balance
Kay Jewelers (GS Financial) - $1000 limit - 0 balance
Ford Credit - $13500 balance remaining - repo and redemption 1.5 years ago, 20 or so late payments, over 1 year straight of ontime payments
Citi Costco Card - 14k limit - 700 balance (Authorized User)
Synchrony Car Care Card - 5.5k limit - 999 balance (Authorized User, had blown transmission on car so had to get fixed, have paid down from 4k to 999)
All of the paid charge offs are due to fall off between august of 2020 - 2025 according to my experian report pulled from annual credit report.
Are there any suggestions on things I should do to improve my scores to bump up to the 700 range? Or is it a matter of just needing to make on time payments and let my scores improve? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated and thanks for reading my story.
My current FICO 8 Scores:
EX: 684
EQ: 678
TU: 661
Right now you have too many accounts with balances. Get them all paid down and have the Citi card be your less than 8% reporting card. As we say AZEO. All Zero Except One. FICO doesnt care for more than 50% of the total amount of cards reporting a balance. The rest just need to age. CO's are killers till they die off. but the older the better. Good Luck.
No, the citi is an authorised user, so he needs a balance on that and also on the credit one.
Oops. Miss that AU thingy @Anonymous . Yeah CO reporting.