Credit Repair

[Anonymous]

Back in January 2013 I sent a letter to Frontier Communications regarding a negative account sitting on my credit report. It is for a home phone/DSL account that we had three years ago. I've mentioned this in other threads, but I wanted to have a thread seperate to discuss my credit repair attempts.

Basically, we cancelled our Frontier account when we bought our 1st house in 2011. My wife personally returned our DSL modem to their office, but a month later we got billed over $300 for the modem. I called and told them we had returned it to the store, and they said they would research the issue. With a job change and a move across country, I forgot about this account. It wasn't until we were knee deep is purchasing our 2nd home, that I found out they were reporting the account in negative status. For months I went back and forth with Frontier telling them I did not owe that money and that I had returned the modem. Long story short, they agreed to reduce the amount by 50%, so now I owe them $153.10. In January 2013 I sent them a letter, to the address they had on my credit report, offering them a PFD. I offered a 100% payment of $153.10 in exchange for deletion of the account. I used the letter from this forum. A couple of weeks later, I got a response from someone in their collections department saying if I sent them certified funds for the entire amount they would request the account be deleted from the credit bureaus within 10 days of them cashing the check.

So this is where we sit. On February 5th I got the money order and on February 6th I sent it out. I waited a few days and then pretty much every day I call the phone number for the money order to see if it has been cashed. Here we are, 10 days later and it still hasn't been cashed. I've been trying to call their collection department to see what the deal is, but whenever I get a chance, it is always in the evening and they've already closed. My guess is that there was some language in the letter that I sent along with the check that is preventing them from cashing it. I basically said that if they cashed the check, they were agreeing to delete the account within 10 days and asked them to please mail me a letter letting me know the deletion has been requested.

Luckily I paid through Western Union so if they don't cash it, I can probably (with some inconvenience and cost, I am sure) get my money back. But that is besides the point. I really wanted this account resolved!! What do you think my next move should be? Call them? Send a letter inquiring as to why the check hasn't been cashed?

I am afraid that if I stop the money order and get my refund that they'll turn around and cash it and it will bounce and tick them off. But seriously, how long are they going to  hang onto it?

[Anonymous]

I've got NINE letters going out tomorrow.

2 to Citibank. They're both regarding one card, a Home Depot credit card. This account was paid in full and closed years ago. It has 1 30-day late that is driving me insane. So far they wont budge. I am trying two different addresses I've found. I've called the Home Depot Credit Card Customer Service number and they said it can be deleted but I have to request via mail. UGH!

1 to Northland Group. Dropped a class in school and they're charging me $3800 for it. Got this in December. Did a DV on it, got a huge stack of paperwork from the University. Sent letter to Northland asking for settlement or payment arrangements and they've disappeared. With that in mind, I am also sending a letter to the University. These are being sent via certified mail because of the huge dollar amount. I could see them turning around and suing me for this, so I need to start proving that I am sending all of these letters.

1 to CBE Group. $41 collection appeared on my wife's credit to Black Hills. Not sure what that is about, all I know is our rental house has gas from them so I don't know if this is from a period while it was vacant. Either way, we've never gotten a bill, a call from collections, or any notices. Just going off what I see on her report. I sent them a PFD offer last month for $41. Didn't hear anything back. Sending again via certified mail.

1 to Convergent Outsourcing for CenturyLink. We had our home phone/internet/DirecTV bundled with CenturyLink at our old house. They've sent us to collections for $199 for the transfer fee from DirecTV but we paid DirecTV directly. I did a DV and they sent a print off and are holding that we owe it, so I offered 30% to settle and asked they delete. I haven't heard anything back, so I am sending that offer again via certified mail.

1 to CMI. Time Warner Cable sent us to collections for $183 to not returning our modem, which we returned AND we also paid the collection. I disputed it since we returned the modem but CMI just verifies it. I've sent them letters which their customer service people say they've received but they don't approve OR deny my Goodwill requests. I've filed a complaint with the FTC for accuracy. This is another letter asking them to delete in the meantime. Being sent certified.

Lots of little things that need to be addressed. Up until 2 or so years ago when I actually started making a decent living we apparently would ignore little bills. I'm not sure what we were thinking.

[Anonymous]

Been looking over credit reports, and it looks like aside from these little things here and there that I am mass producing letters for, the only thing holding us back is high utilization and inquiries. In 2013, all but 1 of my inquries will drop off and all but 5 of my wifes will drop off. She has hit with quite a few in 2012 since we bought a new car.

As for the utilization, I just paid down a bunch of stuff. I have a theory to how I am paying them off and am doing it in a manner that frees up the most cash each month, so I am basically paying off my wife's cards first. She's got a lot of little ones. Her utilization is now down to 57% from 84%. My utilization is at (ouch) 93%. By the end of March we should both be sitting at about 29% and we've got a plan to have it at 0% by the end of the year.

We've refinanced both of our houses and we've got two decent cars so we really shouldn't need to hit up our credit for anything. So the plan is to continue working on getting rid of these old baddies and plugging away at paying things down.

Who else gets a rush from paying off a credit card? I never thought it would be exciting.. but when you've been staring at these for the last 7 years..... it's about time we quit ignoring them.

[guiness56]

You don't want all of your CC reporting a 0 balance.  FICO likes to see you use your credit but use it wisely.  Optimally, all but one report a 0 balance and one report at 9% or below.  YMMV so you can experiment and see what gives you the best score results.

[Anonymous]

I got an email today from CMI stating that "for the sake of customer service" they will request this account deleted. I emailed them back and they stated they've always deleted it. So another win in my corner!

[guiness56]

Good job!

[kitty9779]

That's awesome!

[Shogun]

Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Just received a phone call from "UNKNOWN" which I typically don't answer, but because I dislike checking my voicemail more than answering random phone calls, I picked it up.

It was a lady from Citi, who I had my Home Depot credit card through. They marked me as 30 days late one month, which I otherwise had perfect payment history the rest of the time. I've sent them a dozen letters, called Home Depot's Customer Service and called Citi's customer service. The home depot side agreed it needed to be removed, Citi refused. After not getting any responses to my letters, I filed a complaint with the BBB yesterday. Apparently this is them responding to the complaint.

The lady basically said she had gotten my correspondence at her desk and she was just calling to let me know they would be reviewing everything. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction for this account. She did say she was with the Executive Office.

[Anonymous]

I'm needing to come to terms with the fact that I've just made some cruddy decisions in the last few years with my credit and for those items, I will just have to do the time and allow them to fall off. Leasing two cars just before the economy tanked has taken my credit score with it. I highly doubt GMAC will ever change anything about those, so they'll just have to age and fall off.

On the up-side, Experian's Credit Monitoring service is telling me that once they age and fall off, I will be in the 800 club. Those two paid charge offs falling off will move me from the upper 500/lower 600 area all the way up at 798. Then, if I pay off my credit cards and don't apply for anything else, it is showing in the 800's.