Help - rebuilding credit to purchase first home.

[Anonymous]

You said you don't even know what the collection is, right?  You need to pull all three of your reports from annualcreditreport.com, which is the most complete source of information you can have.  Do not buy scores, just get those reports.  Save them in .pdf format and refer to them for information.  That's where you'll find the complete collection info.  Post what you find for specific advice about it.

Also, go to optoutprescreen.com and opt out both you and your wife.  That will stop credit offers, but it will also make it less likely that an unscrupulous CA will pop up when they see mortgage inquiries and put something on your report to strongarm you into paying somehting you don't owe.

And a previous poster said paying down that 90% utilization should jump you 20-25 points - that is a really low estimate.  Going from 90% to the ideal balance will probably give you a jump more in the neighborhood of 100 points.  That's a really rough estimate.  Ideally, you want all of your revolving accounts reporting $0 balances and one account reporting less than 9% utilization. 

GW anything that's paid, but make sure you make it crystal clear what you want - you want derogatory info removed, you probably don't want a tradeline removed.  There have been people who have sent a GW and gotten an account removed instead of just the lates, and it ended up dropping their score by reducing their account ages.

Honestly, take care of that utilization issue and you should easily get to that score you need. 

[Anonymous]

I have my report from the annual credit report website, it doesn't even show the utility collection. That is the report from all three companies that I get once yearly for free. Yeah, it doesn't show it. I have two credit reports from two different mortgage companies and their identical since they pull them from the same company. This is what it says:

Utilities (long account number)

Reported: 12/09

Open: 10/06

Mos Reviewed:06

Past Due: $179

Payment Collection

Balance: $179

Last Activity: 12/07

High Balance: $179

Open: O-09

EFX-2 Individual

ACCOUNT CLOSED AT CONSUMER'S REQUEST COLLECTION ACCOUNT

All of my other accounts show the name of the company, this one just says Utilities. I have no idea who it is from and I don't keep bills past 1 year.  Honestly, if I knew who it was I would send them a PFD and just pay the $180 in exchange for them deleting it.. but like I said,TrueCredit.com doesn't show it, AnnualCreditReport.com doesn't show it... just these mortgage ones that are from "Credit Information Systems".

Another question.. after futher reviewing this, I am seeing that The Home Depot is showing one 30 day late from November 2007 when I moved and didn't receive the bill. That account is paid and closed (though they still report it as in good standing every month, which I don't understand) so is that worth sending a Goodwill request to? If I do that, I have heard that for some people it makes them update it, which is bad?

Otherwise all of our other cards are 100% on time. We've had them all for 1-5 years. That would be awesome if paying them off gave us a 100 point boost. I am a member of CreditKarma.com and they have a credit simulator. They suspect that paying off all of my card debt would move me from 608 to 688.

[Shogun]

Creditkarma is still a FAKO... I wouldn't go by the point boost it showed.  I'd offer a PFD for the utilities and send a goodwill to Home Depot.  

[Anonymous]

Shogun--

How do I find out who the utility company is when only one credit report shows it and it just says "Utilities"?

[Shogun]

You should send a DV to the name and address that it lists on your credit report.  This should show you who has the account, who the original OC was and  how they came up with the figure they've posted (Original $ plus any penalties or fees)   This will give you the information you need to settle the account.

[Shogun]

Oh,, and don't go by the creditkarma thing.  You need your actual CR, they will have to have the name and address of who posted it.

[Anonymous]

If the account is not on the ones directly from the CRA (annualcreditreport.com), I would have to ignore it.

CreditKarma is a 3rd party report and not very reliable.

[Anonymous]

Guiness --

Just to confirm, the collection account titled "Utilities" on the two seperate reports that I got from two different banks that both got it from the same place does not appear to be on my annualcreditreport.com report.

Your suggestion is to ignore it?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Guiness --

Just to confirm, the collection account titled "Utilities" on the two seperate reports that I got from two different banks that both got it from the same place does not appear to be on my annualcreditreport.com report.

Your suggestion is to ignore it?

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The reports you get from annualcreditreport.com are directly from the CRAs .  These reports are the most accurate and detailed.

I don't know where the lender get their reports.  They could have pulled your entire credit file, not just the current CR. 

Can you find out where the lender gets the reports and if they got your credit file vs a report.

Have you shown them the reports you pulled yourself?

I missed the part about the lender pulls when I said to ignore it.  I thought you had seen it on Credit Karma.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The reports you get from annualcreditreport.com are directly from the CRAs .  These reports are the most accurate and detailed.

I don't know where the lender get their reports.  They could have pulled your entire credit file, not just the current CR. 

Can you find out where the lender gets the reports and if they got your credit file vs a report.

Have you shown them the reports you pulled yourself?

I missed the part about the lender pulls when I said to ignore it.  I thought you had seen it on Credit Karma.

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Guiness-

I am going to assume that they pulled my credit file not my credit report. Reason being that this shows it was put into collections in 2007 and I have been pulling my reports each year from annualcreditreport.com and have never seen it.

The two banks received the credit report from the same company, "Credit Information Systems." Aside from the collection account we've been discussing, everything else is the same to my other credit report that I pulled myself.

When the bank told me about it, I questioned it with them and wanted to know why it didn't show on mine. They were not interested in seeing the report that I had pulled and, even after I showed it to them, they both said something along the lines of "we base our decision off of this report. Always have, always will." and asked me to come back in a few months when I am 640 or higher.

Credit Karma doesn't give you a credit report, persay. They show you a "score" and a "transunion vantage score." The vantage score is basically the regular score plus twenty five or so points. I don't know how they calculate that, but it doesn't matter since it is garbage. What I mainly use it for is, unlike Truecredit.com that just gives you the information and a way to dispute it, Creditkarma advises you on things you could do to improve and tells you what they suspect it will do for you. For example, it says "your score is lower than it should be due to high credit utilization. lower it and you could see a 50+ point jump."

What I was considering doing is calling who I suspect is the utility company and giving them the account number. My only concern is that in doing so they will decide to hit my credit with it again. Is it better to just skip all of that and send them a letter saying I will pay it if they remove it? I am also wondering if removing it is even worthwhile since it isn't on my credit REPORT, just credit FILE? But at the same time, it was something the lender used against me even though I was under the impression that open collections didn't matter if they were old. Honestly either way I would like to fix it and get it removed, just need to know the best way to do it.