Just getting started....

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I used this site years ago to rebuild my credit and the information was invaluable. I am now working on my husbands credit with him and the situation is different from what I dealt with. I could use any and all advice you have on what to do next.

Current scores: TU 516 EQ 518 EX 520

On his reports currently are:

-Car loan with multiple 30 day late payments, now current.
-Fingerhut Fresh Start account paid for 4 months and closed by fingerhut in good standing when graduated to a regular account.
-The regular Fingerhut account, tradeline only, no payments yet.

Collections:
ARS, medical, $720, on until 3/21
ARS, medical, $759, on until 5/20
ARS, medical, $979, on until 1/19
CCS, medical, $501, on until 12/19
Southwest Credit Systems (AT&T) $3595, on until 12/23

Not yet reporting are a Visa with a $300 limit and a store card with a $250 limit.

All collections are within the SOL. My husband wants to pay them all off but I would like to attempt pay for deletes so that it has a chance of improving his score. I'm thinking the Southwest collection is the one we should try to get rid of first? It would have to be a settlement with pay for delete and from reading here I don't think they will be receptive to that. Should we instead try PFD on the smaller medical collections first?

I'm nervous to attempt GW letters on the late car loan payment because it's with VW and from what I've read they like to respond by adding more lates.

He also received a dunning letter today on yet another medical bill from Phoenix. DV letter?

Thank you in advance for any advice!

[Anonymous]

Sign him up for Collection Shield 360. It's free and legit. I signed up for them 2 weeks ago and my score went up 42 points because 2 collections were removed and their still in the process of disputing the others. They say it could take 50 days to complete.

[Anonymous]

DV the dunning and offer PFD on all the others. See what the responses are and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Feblue - Thank you for the info, I had never heard of Collection Shield 360, looking into it now.
Lowkeyorca - I will DV the dunning tomorrow and send PFD letters for all the medical collections. I'm hesitant to do Southwest yet because it would be a month or 2 before I could pay in full if they refuse to take less or decide to sue.
Thank you both for the input.

[Anonymous]

OP - be careful with third parties... stuff can be deleted and reappear and you have no recourse. It can damage any chance of gw in the future as well.

[jdxprs1]

if bankruptcy is an option, you might want to consider it. no idea what his income is like.

i'd bet his scores would recover much faster that way.

if it isnt an option, i would figure out what is out of statute of limitations, and leave the stuff you can't be sued for until all else was paid.

figure out a way to make him an authorized user on your accounts that have no baddies.

[Anonymous]

Isn't bankruptcy a bit extreme? The total debts are $7,000 in collections, mostly medical. We own our home outright and 1 of our 2 vehicles. The vehicle we're making payments on we still owe $9,000 but it is in good standing and worth more than we owe.
All of these debts are within the SOL which is 10 years here.
His income is around 50K a year. Mine is 30. We can afford to put 2K a month towards these over the next 3 months I just want to be strategic and maximize the benefit of paying them. I was wanting to take care of SW (AT&T) first but I only have 2K to spend this month and I am hesitant to ask them to PFD for a settlement because I was concerned about it provoking them to sue.
Thank you for the input!

[Anonymous]

*Update*
Current scores are: 559 Eq 529Tu 553 Ex
It's been a month and we've seen some small gains in his scores. He now has 2 Visa cards reporting with a $300 limit each and 2 store cards at $250 each. Uti around 3%.
His aaoa took a hit and is down to 1 year but it will pay off in the long run. He needed some positives reporting.
Only a couple inquiries on each bureau since the store cards were done with the sct. Cap1 and Discover seem to really dislike him. Both denied him a secured card. He has never had any dealings with/burned either one.
As of this morning he paid off every collection on his report. All of them agreed to pfd. 5 total. ARS and CCS were both very easy going. ARS even agreed to a settlement along with pfd.
I'm excited to see how his scores improve once the collections start coming off. He still has many lates on an auto loan with VW so I don't expect anything huge but we should see some progress, correct?
Next move might be attempting a gw with VW but I keep going back and forth with it since I've read some horror stories of them adding additional lates.
All in all it's been a productive month. Any suggestions?