Newbie LVNV question?

[iwannapool]

Long story, so apologies for my writing inadiquacies in advance.

We lost our home in a May torndado, then we sold our land, now we'd like to get a mortgage. We knew it (credit score)was bad because we had been completely overextended when we were younger, had done consumer credit counseling, then quit paying because we couldn't afford to eat. Well, we rocked on for years assuming it was too bad to fix and lived off of our actual incomes (shocker I know!).

Anyway, we had a large down payment and thought we'd try to get a mortgage. He tried for a 184 (Indian) loan, and surprisingly although his scores were terrible, there was only one outstanding item from this LVNV still on his credit. We were advised to pay it and wait 12 months and then we would qualify for the Indian loan, because although they will look past the bad score, all outstanding items must be paid for at least 12 months. Anyway, after reading here I realized I should have negotiated to PIF and have it removed. I have since sent a GW letter, but I am wondering if I should offer to go back and PIF (see I'm picking up the lingo:-)) and THEN have it removed. This would likely put us in a good mortgage months sooner.

I am also doing some secured CC's and we are also going to do an auto loan secured with a CD....trying to get the scores to improve while we wait for the 12 months to pass.  

[GoodCredBen]

If the indian loan was going to approve you with exceptions of this LVNV (i have no idea what LVNV is) then i would harp them for a PFD (Pay for Deletion) ... 

[RobertEG]

Good will letters are rarely, if ever, granted when the debt remains unpaid, so I would not expect GW deletion.

Offering to pay the debt, in whole or in part, in exchange for their agreement to delete their prior reporting is called a pay-for-delete (PFD) offer.

It is a negotiation with them.  They can accept or refuse.  One of the factors that might play to your favor would be if the debt has passed your state period of statute of limitations, thus making the debt uncollectible through the courts.  Lacking the ability to sue for the debt usually makes them a bit more receptive to agreeing to CR deletion.  What is the date of first delinquency on the OC account that led up to their collection?  Is it still within SOL?

If you offer a PFD, then make sure you have the funds to pay should they accept.  You dont want to enter into a bad faith negotiation with them.

[GoodCredBen]

100% agree with robert!

[iwannapool]

What I'm trying to say is that I already paid the settlement offer, before I knew about the possibility of negotiating to get it removed. Like most consumers, I really had no idea the in's and out's of what I COULD have done.

[GoodCredBen]

Same thing i did, best you can do now is send GW letters, if they are reporting it as unpaid, i would ask them to remove it and send them a copy of your paid in full letter. 

[Cherriwyn]

Hi RobertEG,

Like member Iwannapool, I have an account with LVNV (OC was HSBC/Orchard Bank) but my account is unpaid.  According to my states Statute of limitation (Virginia) on credit cards is 3 years.  The DOFD with the OC is 02/2007.   LVNV is currently reporting as a factoring company and they continue to add fees each month.  Before reading  some of the posts on the forum I decided to accept the settlement they offered but I was told by the representative they no longer had the account.  In the months to come, I received an offer from Weltman, Weinberg, Reis & Co. LPA, to settle the account.  I sent a DV to WWR by CMRR over 30 days ago but I have not received a response back.  This week, LVNV again added an additional charge to my balance for whatever reason I'm not sure.   Since this account increase occured, I decided to send a DV to LVNV CMRR with each of their subsidiaries listed on the letter.  At this point I'm not sure what I should do.  I would like to get preapproved for a house by late spring and getting this removed would help increase my scores.