Need advice

[Anonymous]

I haven't gotten that far yet, there's really no big change in the credit report until after the rehab's complete. But at least now I have a plan.

The deal with rehab is that it's theoretically supposed to wipe the negative information from your report - the default never happened, according to your credit report. So I'm anticipating after 9-12 months of payments that the lates that led up to the default will still show but I'll show a clean history after 2009, which was when I originally defaulted. The other option is to pay it off or consolidate, and in that case the results are more immediate BUT the late & default information remains on your credit report for 7.5 years. For me, I wanted three years of good history if possible, so I rehabbed.

The wait, though? Feels interminable. And the payments are fairly high but if this works the way I hope it will it'll be worth it.

[Anonymous]

The judgment doesn't show on any of the credit reports? You checked all three? Cause that is weird. If you never had a Tribute card, and it's not on your report, how do you know it's not a mistake? Is this possibly not your debt?

In some jurisdictions court records are available online. Have you looked yourself up?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The judgment doesn't show on any of the credit reports? You checked all three? Cause that is weird. If you never had a Tribute card, and it's not on your report, how do you know it's not a mistake? Is this possibly not your debt?

In some jurisdictions court records are available online. Have you looked yourself up?

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Thanks again for the helpful information.

The county it was in does not report anything online sadly.

Credit Karma reports no judgement. To be sure, I also have credit monitoring via my financial institution which pulls from all 3. The judgement is listed no where. There is also no Tribute Mastercard on any of my reports as well.

I was never give the chance to dispute anything - just got a writ of garnishment in the mail (at my old address) on 5/4/2012. It lists the original judgement as 08/25/2009.

Needless to say, being gainfully employed for a number of years had I gotten anything official in the mail, I would have addressed it.

I paid it in full via phone on 05/14/12. Got a letter of release 7/3 which was dated 06/25. Had my paycheck garnished on 7/6 and am now battling get my money back. I work for a major financial institution and was attempting to prevent the garnishment.

It was only after I paid it that I found out that it was for a Tribute Mastercard. And Midland Credit would only tell me they bought the debt and enlisted a law firm to collect.

So I am not sure it's mine. I'm calling the clerk's office tomorrow to see what they say. I'll also know tomorrow if I am going to get my money refunded. The law firm/collection agency said they would send the check back and not cash it.

[Anonymous]

Wow...what a mess. But it sounds like you have a handle on it.I, too, have a judgement (a paid state tax lien from 2010) but it shows on all three of my reports. Getting it removed is likely going to take a bit of time/effort/money, so I'm leaving it for now and focusing on the CA's & student loans.

The reason I asked is that I've been dealing with someone, in my former city of residence, who has the same first name and same last name. Apparently her info has gotten onto my credit report, and woe betide this poor lady if my info has gotten on hers. I got a couple of HP's that weren't mine, and getting that straightened out has been a mess, to say the least. Grr. I hope yours goes more smoothly.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Wow...what a mess. But it sounds like you have a handle on it.I, too, have a judgement (a paid state tax lien from 2010) but it shows on all three of my reports. Getting it removed is likely going to take a bit of time/effort/money, so I'm leaving it for now and focusing on the CA's & student loans.

The reason I asked is that I've been dealing with someone, in my former city of residence, who has the same first name and same last name. Apparently her info has gotten onto my credit report, and woe betide this poor lady if my info has gotten on hers. I got a couple of HP's that weren't mine, and getting that straightened out has been a mess, to say the least. Grr. I hope yours goes more smoothly.

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Wow. So I'm not the only one with their hands full.

So far, getting the inquiries off has proved difficult. They all come back as "identified as legit" and referred me to the creditor. So I am sending them GW letters asking for removal. Out of the 40 some odd inquiries on my EQ report, there's 32 I am not familiar with. So yeah, it's gonna be a hard road to plow.

[Anonymous]

But wait - weren't your inquiries from car shopping? I saw this thread just tonight:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/I-just-wanted-to-thank-everyone-And-I-have-1-...

"Yes, FICO ignores auto inquiries beyond the first one, per CR, if pulled within a certain time frame. That time frame varies among FICO versions but is generally between 14 and 45 days. So you can app 100 times within a couple of weeks, and FICO will ignore 99 of them." - quoted from the ever-astute Ilecs.

So if they were within a certain time frame, they shouldn't be affecting your score that much.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

But wait - weren't your inquiries from car shopping? I saw this thread just tonight:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/I-just-wanted-to-thank-everyone-And-I-have-1-question/td-p/1497850

"Yes, FICO ignores auto inquiries beyond the first one, per CR, if pulled within a certain time frame. That time frame varies among FICO versions but is generally between 14 and 45 days. So you can app 100 times within a couple of weeks, and FICO will ignore 99 of them." - quoted from the ever-astute Ilecs.

So if they were within a certain time frame, they shouldn't be affecting your score that much.

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Yes - the majority of them were within a 30-45 day period. I was curious about that myself. It's weird because EX and TU show so few but EQ has 40+ with some of them being over a year old. I think they fall off after 2 years.

[Anonymous]

So motivated by my recent successes - I contacted my state student loan agency by phone to see if they would update the staus on my student loans (they were recently paid off).

I wasn't really surprised when they transferred me to their debt recovery dept and gave me the whole song and dance about trying to collect a debt.

I explained to them that my loans were satisfied, and I was humbly asking them to change the status as I was rebuilding my credit.

Long story short, I could literally hear the excitement and absolute satisfaction in the woman's voice as she told me that they would not change the status.

When I asked why - she said that my federal tax refund had been offset one time, because of that they were under no obligation to modify my report.

And while she may be right, I didn't appreciate her chuckling at the fact that it would be on my credit for 7-10 years.

Anywho, just wanted to share. It's showing as a paid collection and I thought it was worth a shot.