How to rebuild. Repair or BK7?

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone!

New member here. Looking for some advice. 

I've just recently started to track and monitor my credit the past couple of months. 

I fell on some hard times 2/3 years ago - chronic illness which resulted in major surgery. 

Long story short I defaulted on 4 credit cards (all relatively low limits, totalling about $4,000 in debt)

Between these cc debts and medical bills over the years.

I've got myself into a not so great spot credit wise. 

22 derogatory marks on my credit report totalling about $14,000. 

TU fico is 491 / EX fico is 472

Vantage 3.0 is around 621

I have 2 positive accounts that are my own that I opened recently, a secured card and a credit building loan through selflender. I'll be opening a secured card through NFCU shortly as well. 

I'm also listed as an authorized user on 9 accounts with 100% payment history and ~25% utilization. 

I'm not really sure how to go about repairing this aside from waiting for some of it to fall off my report over the next 3-5 years. 

I spoke with a BK attorney and they said I qualify for BK7, but is this something I really even need to do? As everything is in collections, I'm not getting sued or harrassed.  

Any tips are greatly appreciated! 

[FireMedic1]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hi everyone!

New member here. Looking for some advice. 

I've just recently started to track and monitor my credit the past couple of months. 

I fell on some hard times 2/3 years ago - chronic illness which resulted in major surgery. 

Long story short I defaulted on 4 credit cards (all relatively low limits, totalling about $4,000 in debt)

Between these cc debts and medical bills over the years.

I've got myself into a not so great spot credit wise. 

22 derogatory marks on my credit report totalling about $14,000. 

TU fico is 491 / EX fico is 472

Vantage 3.0 is around 621

I have 2 positive accounts that are my own that I opened recently, a secured card and a credit building loan through selflender. I'll be opening a secured card through NFCU shortly as well. 

I'm also listed as an authorized user on 9 accounts with 100% payment history and ~25% utilization. 

I'm not really sure how to go about repairing this aside from waiting for some of it to fall off my report over the next 3-5 years. 

I spoke with a BK attorney and they said I qualify for BK7, but is this something I really even need to do? As everything is in collections, I'm not getting sued or harrassed.  

Any tips are greatly appreciated! 

---

Could you elaborate the red above? Is that 22 accounts? The amount you listed as debt isnt worth BK.

[Anonymous]

Yep.

22 accounts in collections, 18 medical / 4 credit cards. 

I didn't think it was BK worthy - every attorney I spoke with tried to push it on me though. 

[FireMedic1]

Well the CC's collections you can set up a payment plan or settle for less in return for PFD. I take it they are charged off. Moderator gdale6 has a way to rid all the med collections. He pops in here and can post the way to do it. Or Google HIPPA process. We cant talk about it in here. If the collections are with Midland or Portfolio they will delete the accounts from your file.

[simplegirl]

Yeah you don’t need to file bankruptcy you got this. I had 24 baddies and I’m down to 7 that need paying and I just started this February fixing my credit.

[Remedios]

Here is one of the threads with gdale's suggestion on how to deal with medical collections, post 4 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/Medical-Collections/m-p/5519873/highlight/tr...

Good luck, you got this! 

[Anonymous]

I'll throw in with everyone else that the amount of debt is not worth filing a BK for. Put together a budget & work up a gameplan to get each collection/charge off paid or settled.

[vic6string]

My wife and I did a Chapter 7 back in the old days before all the rules changes (around 2000) and then had to follow it up with a 13 in 2014 (it is very common to have a second BK when student loans are an issue since you never lose those). This time it looks like we have things under control and the second fresh start (along with a new focus on fixing ourselves financially) looks like it fixed everything barring another catastrophe.

With all of that said, whenever someone asks me if they should consider bankruptcy, I ask them if they feel that their situation is something that can be fixed in under 7 to 10 years. That is how long it sits on your credit record before everything basically disappears. You have to figure out a realistic budget, call your creditors to determine payment plans that will fit the budget, and work all the numbers. If it is something you can REALISTICALLY payoff and fix, AND your creditors agree in writing to remove any derogitories once it is done, I say try it that way first. 

If you can't see a realistic way to solve it in that time frame, however, bankruptcy is not the end of the world. You can, with some planning and budgeting, get a decent credit score within a couple of years after a BK, and if you have a horrible credit score now with that may derogitories your credit is already probably as bad as it will be right after a BK, and will remain that way until everything is resolved so you could be in credit purgatory for even LONGER trying to pay it off, and if your budget is too tight you might just end up doing a BK eventually anyway.

[Anonymous]

Awesome! 

I didn't know this was even a thing. I've tried disputing the debt's .. some were removed permanently.. some temporarily. I'll give this a go though. 

Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Thanks!