My wife and I have really bad credit. We don't know what we are doing. Hire a credit repair company?

[Anonymous]

We both live in a relative's basement with our kids. My highest score is with Equifax at 589. Lowest is 530 with Experian. I have charge off, late payments, bankruptcy from October 2009. We did use Sky Blue Credit repair a few months ago. They helped with debt validation and credit repair. I still have one debt collector contacting me and will need to do debt validation as well. My point is both my wife and I  want the fastest results possible. So we can move out and get a house in the future or an apartment. We both HATE having bad credit. The bankruptcy was for medical reasons by the way. Not for credit card debt or loans. 

Should we get help from a credit repair company? If so which one and why? 

I'm very new to the forums so pardon my ignorance. We have never done credit repair ourselves. 

Thanks for reading. 

[gdtobefree]

Why pay someone for what you can do for just the cost of postage?

Credit repair isn't going to happen overnight, on average expect anywhere from 2 weeks to 45 days for anything to happen. I know that's not what you wanted to hear but it is what it is.

You said you had a Collection account. 1st thing to do is find out if it is past the statute of limitations for suit. Is it?

Before going any further that needs to be answered.

[Sandman771]

Even with the bad stuff on your report you will need some good stuff to offset them. If you have $1000 then you can get two cards and an installment loan reporting then start working on bad stuff. Take $500 and open a secured credit card hopefully from a bank or credit union that you bank at. The second $500 do the secured loan technique and let that go through then you get most of that back and add a little to it and get a second $500 secured card for a second revolving tradline. never let either card report a balance of greater than 9%. Over time you'll get score increases larger at first then they taper off. 

After that get to work on paying the old stuff and start a GW campaign to get them removed. My siggy shows my scores over the past 9 months so it is possible, it just takes time.  And as always, a PFD collection is best but a paid collection is second best and an open collection just plain sucks. 

[Anonymous]

Start off getting reliable credit reports. Maybe annualcreditreport.com. It's free. Be sure to have a printer ready to go. You need to know exactly where you stand. Then the work begins. You can easily do it yourself. Good luck my friend!

[Anonymous]

"fast" and "credit repair" are not terms that play well together. You need to look at this as a long term (two year minimum) process, otherwise you will simply be right back in the same place in a year or two.

Start off by establishing two secured cards and one secured personal loan. Do the secured loan first, I would suggest SDFCU, because you can put the loan proceeds back into savings and use it for a secured card, basically getting a "twofer". Then try for a Cap One or Discover secured card. Stir and let simmer for six months, then app for an unsecured Cap One card.

[jesseh]

You've got some excellent advise already, fully agree with everything above this post.

Good luck (y) 

[radfam]

I will echo what others have said.  If you are willing to learn it, you can easily do your own credit repair.  When I first found these boards, I was inches from contacting a well known Credit Repair service because I was extremely intimidated.  I had NO CLUE what I needed to do.  It can seem impossible to do on your own.  Read as much as you can on these boards.  Use the "search" function for things you don't quite understand.  Ask questions.  People here are helpful and truthful, from my experience.    Good luck!  

[Anonymous]

There's too much focus here on trying to fix your credit score but no talk at all about trying to fix your financial situation.

What IS your financial situation?  How much income do you make monthly and what are your expenses?  Do you have a written budget and do you update it monthly to compare your actual spending to what you've committed to on paper?  Do you have any form of savings?  If not, why?

Do you have a solid and stable income?

Without knowing your budget/financial details, no amount of credit repair is worth it because chances are, you'll be in worse shape if you can't make and stick to a budget and build some emergency savings.

[Anonymous]

As someone who just started to fix his credit earlier this year and has made some large strides along the way, I have to say it is not quick or fast!

It takes time and it takes a lot of patience as well.

Now I can admit that I had no clue whatsoever when it came to removing collections and things that would help my profile out. After being on here for awhile and realizing what just writing a simple letter can do for you. It made me quickly learn that these companies who "will do it for you" are really just taking more money off your table.

I agree with all of the advice above and I definitely agree with the financial one as well. Because if you are financially irresponsible right now. Then you might as well back off for a second about fixing your credit because it'll go nowhere if you continue to struggle paying off collections and amount more debt along the way...