My Credit Rebuilding Journey

[Anonymous]

I thought I would create this posting as a way of tracking my rebuilding journey. Within the past couple of days I have sent out 2 seperate GW letters, and 3 seperate PFD letters.

One of the GW letters was sent to capital One Auto Finance, the auto loan was paid in full in 2015 but is reporting a number of late payments. The other GW letter was sent to the owner of my Student Loans. The student loans are with Nelnet, I will have them completely paid off before the end of the year but they are reporting a few laste payments from 2018. I have 5 collections/charge offs on my CR's so I sent PFD letters to the three smallest of them and will do so to the other two once I have those taken care of. I still have one collections account that isn't charged off but it is the largest of all of them so it will have tro wait. 

I currently do not have any active CC's but do plan on securing at least one secured card to start with, trying to set aside money for the deposit now. I also have recently set up a $500 Self Lender credit builder loan with the first payment due in three weeks. I also set up a $500 credit builder loan with FigLoans with the first payment also due in three weeks.

Currently my credit scores are as follows:

Experian: 571

Equifax: 563

TansUnion: 563

I'm looking forward to the journey and will keep everyone imformed as to my progress.

[DIYcredit]

You are missing out on Fico score points by not showing activity meaning monthly on time payments on a cc.Try a secured cap1 and optimize your cc utilization by keeping it at 1-6%.After 6- 8 months graduate up to an unsecured cap1 cc with an overall goal of having three cc's (no rush) and learn the azeo method.Keep your oldest cc open.Keep current with your future cc and installment loans and you will be well on your way.GOOD LUCK 

[Anonymous]

Thank you, I am putting money aside to get a secured CC, I am not in a position where I can put down a $500 deposit and not miss it. I should be able to do so in about a months time if things go as planned.

[CreditRebuilder2020]

There's a possibility you might get shut down on Discover/Cap One/CitiBank secured cards. If that happens, go for OpenSky, it saved my life when it comes to getting my rebuilding journey back going. My Vantage score was in the 400's back in 2016, Got shut down for everything, OpenSky was my lifeline......very easy approval process, it's almost a guarantee. 

2 1/2 years later, I still have the card open, even though my rebuilding journey is getting close to being complete with my scores in Mid to Upper 600's. Eventually I was able to get a Discover Secured, which is now unsecured (waiting on a CLI though!!). Also eventually got a Cap One Platinum Secured and that lead me to Cap One Quicksilver One card which also got a CLI thanks to their baby steps program. I also picked up two Credit Ones/Legacy VISA/Blaze MC - Which I can't wait to close, but right now they're helping my overall utilization rates with the $500 Credit Lines, One of my Credit Ones is up to $650 after a CLI. The BS Fees stink and so do the cards, but they serve a purpose.

Last year was my big major accomplishment when I got an AMEX Green Card and after one year which is next month (!!), I'll be upgrading to the Gold, which I am suppppppper pumped about. 

Just thought I would give you a little history on my credit rebuilding journey. It's a marathon not a sprint, I reccommend Open Sky if you can't get Cap One/Discover, but certainly get in with them and treat them right, you will start seeing results in no time! 

[Anonymous]

---

@CreditRebuilder2020 wrote:

There's a possibility you might get shut down on Discover/Cap One/CitiBank secured cards. If that happens, go for OpenSky, it saved my life when it comes to getting my rebuilding journey back going. My Vantage score was in the 400's back in 2016, Got shut down for everything, OpenSky was my lifeline......very easy approval process, it's almost a guarantee. 

2 1/2 years later, I still have the card open, even though my rebuilding journey is getting close to being complete with my scores in Mid to Upper 600's. Eventually I was able to get a Discover Secured, which is now unsecured (waiting on a CLI though!!). Also eventually got a Cap One Platinum Secured and that lead me to Cap One Quicksilver One card which also got a CLI thanks to their baby steps program. I also picked up two Credit Ones/Legacy VISA/Blaze MC - Which I can't wait to close, but right now they're helping my overall utilization rates with the $500 Credit Lines, One of my Credit Ones is up to $650 after a CLI. The BS Fees stink and so do the cards, but they serve a purpose.

Last year was my big major accomplishment when I got an AMEX Green Card and after one year which is next month (!!), I'll be upgrading to the Gold, which I am suppppppper pumped about. 

Just thought I would give you a little history on my credit rebuilding journey. It's a marathon not a sprint, I reccommend Open Sky if you can't get Cap One/Discover, but certainly get in with them and treat them right, you will start seeing results in no time! 

---

Thank you @creditbuilder2020, your story and accomplishments are amazing and something that I stive towards for myself.

[Anonymous]

**UPDATE**

I pulled all three of my credit reports yesterday and am overwhelmed to say the least at what all is on my credit reports. In all honesty I am a little scared that I might not be able to get everything resolved. My ex wife really did a number on me but I am determined to try and get everything resolved without having to go the bankruptcy route.

I have put together a list of evrything on my credit reports and have a total of 10 collection accounts that are going to be my focus, I have already sent GW letters to the two accounts that I have that are in good standing but have late payments reporting in their history. I received settlement offers for three of the collection accounts earlier this month and have already sent PFD letters to those CA's. I intend to do the same for the remaining collection/charge-off accounts but some of them have high balences and I just can't afford to pay those at this time so I will have to tackle them one at a time starting with the lowest balences first and working my way up to the higher balences.

I have found that there are 4 seperate accounts that are reporting on my reports as charge off's by the origional creditor but are also being reported as collection/charge-off's by a CA as well. I am not sure how to tackle these, any advice would greately be appreciated. I also have two collection accounts that are not charged off yet that are medical, I read on one of the threads a couple days ago that there is a specific way to address medical collections but I have not been able to find it again, any advice would greately be appreciated.

It was my hope that I could get my credit on point by the end of the year, I need a new vehicle and had planned to try and get financing to buy a new one in December. After getting a complete accounting of everything on my CR's I am not sure that will be possible.

Any and all advice would greately be appreciated, thanks...

[Anonymous]

I was in your shoes two years ago. I got a secured card with cap 1. You have to start rebuilding while you are in the process of getting the baddies to go away. Also keep in mind that the longer the baddies are on your report the less of an impact they have on your scores.
You should keep working on them being removed while establishing your payment history.

[dynamicvb]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I have found that there are 4 seperate accounts that are reporting on my reports as charge off's by the origional creditor but are also being reported as collection/charge-off's by a CA as well. I am not sure how to tackle these, any advice would greately be appreciated. I also have two collection accounts that are not charged off yet that are medical, I read on one of the threads a couple days ago that there is a specific way to address medical collections but I have not been able to find it again, any advice would greately be appreciated.

---

If you can get the original creditors to recall the debt from the collection agency with an agreement you will pay them, then that would help as the accompanying collection would go away. You may be able to settle for even less than you owe. It really just depends on the creditor. Some will recall and others will not as they have sold it. If you could then that would lessen the impact. If the medical collections are less than a 100 bucks then they won't be taken into account on Fico 8. If you google the HIPPA process, then you may be able to get those gone with just a little work.

Not having revolvers is also a pretty good ding. I would not add any more loans but try and get a secured CC or two. Try the CapOne prequalify site and see if the secured platinum comes up. You can get into it sometimes for 49 dollars for a 200 dollar limit. All you need is one to remove that no revolver penalty. Just let a small balance report and that may boost your score up enough to get a better-unsecured card.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
I was in your shoes two years ago. I got a secured card with cap 1. You have to start rebuilding while you are in the process of getting the baddies to go away. Also keep in mind that the longer the baddies are on your report the less of an impact they have on your scores.
You should keep working on them being removed while establishing your payment history.

---

Thanks for the advice! I plan on getting a secured card later this week, thinking about going with the Green Dot Platinum Card, need to wait until payday. My plan is to get a second secured 2 months later. After 6 months I will see if I can qualify for the Discover IT secured card. Half of my baddies are closed accounts or charge-offs that no longer report. The other half do report every month so I really need to address those. Even if they will not agree to a PFD I will still try and come to a settlement with them and pay so that they will stop reporting monthly.

[Anonymous]

---

@dynamicvb wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I have found that there are 4 seperate accounts that are reporting on my reports as charge off's by the origional creditor but are also being reported as collection/charge-off's by a CA as well. I am not sure how to tackle these, any advice would greately be appreciated. I also have two collection accounts that are not charged off yet that are medical, I read on one of the threads a couple days ago that there is a specific way to address medical collections but I have not been able to find it again, any advice would greately be appreciated.

---

If you can get the original creditors to recall the debt from the collection agency with an agreement you will pay them, then that would help as the accompanying collection would go away. You may be able to settle for even less than you owe. It really just depends on the creditor. Some will recall and others will not as they have sold it. If you could then that would lessen the impact. If the medical collections are less than a 100 bucks then they won't be taken into account on Fico 8. If you google the HIPPA process, then you may be able to get those gone with just a little work.

Not having revolvers is also a pretty good ding. I would not add any more loans but try and get a secured CC or two. Try the CapOne prequalify site and see if the secured platinum comes up. You can get into it sometimes for 49 dollars for a 200 dollar limit. All you need is one to remove that no revolver penalty. Just let a small balance report and that may boost your score up enough to get a better-unsecured card.

---

Thank you, I will be getting a secured card this week and plan to get another in two months. The two medical collection accounts are both over $100, I had to have emergency surgery a few years ago and had about 20k in bills, I paid all but three of the bills, two of which reported to the credit agencies. One is for $1,900.00 and the other is for $350.00, I am going to see if they will settle for a lesser amount.