My Story and Intro - any hope?

[CashBackQueen]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum but have seen it around for years. Decided to sign up since I just got a secured credit card in hopes of rebuilding my credit. I've never had good credit. It was decent for a while but I had a ton of store cards open and eventually stopped paying on them. (BAD idea.) My score is a 512 with TransUnion (I think) and I have probably 25 "baddies" with only student loans reporting good (I'm still in school) .... on the plus side, I don't have any repos or BKs or public records, just a bunch of defaulted cards and one broken lease. I think there is hope. Has anyone else came from this low?

[rmduhon]

There is always hope. Have you pulled your free reports from annualcreditreport.com within the last 12 months? If not, that would be your first step. Save or print them out. For advice on how to tackle the baddies list every one including name of the collection agency (CA), original creditor (OC), amount due, Date of First Delinquency (DoFD) or estimated removal date (if applicable, any other date is irrelevant), when any lates may have occurred. Do NOT list any account numbers. Get your actual FICO 08 scores from creditchecktotal.com using the 7 day trial for $1.

[CashBackQueen]

Thanks. I haven't pulled my reports yet but I will. 

[Brickbybrick]

Make sure the first thing you do is pull your report as instructed above. I have a few baddies that are going to fall off next year that totalled to 4k which is a lot of money for me. I've been rebuilding for 6 months now and am on route to 630ish from 580. Every journey begins with a step in the right direction. Keep hope, use that secured card as if it was your debit and since it's your only card keep it under 10% UTI 

I'm not one to preach honestly since my scores are low but I've been studying on here from all these wonderful people for atleast a year. Best of luck!

[Anonymous]

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@MyLoFico17 wrote:
Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum but have seen it around for years. Decided to sign up since I just got a secured credit card in hopes of rebuilding my credit. I've never had good credit. It was decent for a while but I had a ton of store cards open and eventually stopped paying on them. (BAD idea.) My score is a 512 with TransUnion (I think) and I have probably 25 "baddies" with only student loans reporting good (I'm still in school) .... on the plus side, I don't have any repos or BKs or public records, just a bunch of defaulted cards and one broken lease. I think there is hope. Has anyone else came from this low?

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Yes, there is hope. Three years ago, I had about 16 collections on Equifax, 11 on Transunion, and 13 on Experian. I'm not even sure what my FICO 08 score was, but when I would apply for things, my score would come back in the 400-438 range. I had no idea about fixing credit, and I thought I had to wait for things to fall off. In 2015, I learned about having collections removed from my report, so I started doing that and got the number down drastically. 

I didn't start taking action on my credit until last year when I got a Capital One secured card. In February 2017, I became really serious about my scores because I'm getting a house and it matters now. In three short months, I've been able to increase my scores to get the mortgage approval. 

It can be done, but it will take lots of patience. I've learned that with credit repair instant gratification will not always happen. 

[CashBackQueen]

Thanks everyone. I'm going to work on getting these charge-offs removed and taking care of my secured card when it comes. I've got a lot of work to do. 

[Anonymous]

In the "Understanding your FICO Score" board, I have a thread going titled "What kind of increase will I get?" You can read through my journey over there. It may help yours.