Hello Everyone!
I am in the slow process of rebuilding my credit which I massacred in my younger days. Would appreciate any advice you have. Here are my details:
I have 24% utilization on my good credit cards:
| Capital One | $500 | Balance $30 |
| Capital One | $750 | Balance $573 |
| Capital One | $500 | Balance $382 |
| Paypal | $2557 | Balance $0 |
| Target | $2500 | Balance $1803 |
| NCD Financial | $5000 | Balance $0 |
I plan to pay off Target by August and all Capital One's by September.
I have 3 inquiries with Experian and 1 each for TU and EQ.
My oldest account is 9 years, 11 months.
Current scores as per Experian: Experian 612, EQ 681 and TU is 661.
I think the big gap between scores is because my student loan (in good standing) reports to EX only.
Here are the baddies:
| EX | EQ | TU |
| Credit 1, charged off, $0 | Credit 1, charged off $0 | Credit 1, charged off $0 |
| First Premier, $1061 | First Premier, $1061 | First Premier, $1061 |
| First Premier, $1031 | First Premier, $1031 | First Premier, $1031 |
| Blaze, $0 charged off | Blaze, $587 | Blaze, $587 |
| Merrick, $1493 | Merrick, $1493 | Merrick, $1493 |
| Fortiva, charged off, $0 | Fortiva, charged off, $0 | Fortiva, charged off, $0 |
| Spotloan, $579 | Spotloan, $579 | |
| 1st National Credit, $664 | 1st National Credit, $664 | |
| Midland Credit (credit 1), $1722 | Midland Credit (credit 1), $1722 |
So, what should I do first? Deal with the charge offs? The collection agency? Please let me know if you need any more information.
Thank you!!!
@SophieHowl Welcome to the myFICO forum.
For immediate score relief, work on your reported utilization. Seek AZEO All Zero Except one card reporting a balance. Individual 1-29% utilization. Aggregate 1-9% utilization.
Depending on available funds, perhaps pick the low hanging fruit, so to speak. Look at the original creditor or collection agency that will PFD Pay For Delete.
If PFD is not available, seek The Saturation Technique: Best GW adjustment odds.
Pull your credit report and see which ones are outside the SOL Statute Of Limitations to devise a game plan. AnnualCreditReport Free weekly 3 bureau online reports through April 2021.
Unless you can delete them, the chargeoffs aren't going to gain you much by paying them, so I would first focus on the usage of your open accounts.
1 - pay off the $30 CapOne and be done with it. Low hanging fruit is the quickest and easiest and having another card at zero never hurts. One less bill next month and a better look for your profile.
2 - Target is at 72% and you planned to pay that off in the next few weeks. The other two CapOne cards are at 76% and 78% respectively. Rather than pay off Target, use that money this way:
Pay $848 on Target to get to 38% ($955 remaining balance). This puts you in a more acceptable usage range for the card that will buy you some breathing room. You will drop through two scoring thresholds on this payment and stand to gain a few points from doing so.
With the remaining money of that $1803, pay off both Cap One cards. That gives you five cards at zero, one with a balance.
2 - next month when you were going to pay off the CapOne cards, put that money toward Target instead. Pay off all of the card and let it report zero. At the same time, put a $10 charge on one of your CapOne cards and let it report. Now you'll still have five cards at zero, but the one with a balance is a major bank card and is reporting a small fractional balance. This puts you into what we call AZEO - All Zero Except One. - which @AllZero alluded to above. The idea behind it is to show the smallest usage possible on one card with all others reporting zero. This is the ideal look and can be worth 10-15 points, profile dependent. Your gains may be truncated some because of the derogs but this gives you the best look for your scores and lenders going forward.
Once you have established AZEO, turn to the derogs. Who currently owns each debt? If you list the collection agencies, we can help you formulate a plan to go after them with the best results the fastest. List them out with original creditor/balance/limit/current owner of the debt/date of first delinquency. Like this:
Blaze MC/$587/$500/Portfolio Recovery/4-2018
With this info, we can help you plan how to attack your derogs and clean things up 
You might be eligible with First Premier to open a card which converts your debts with them to an open account with them.. Has some caveats but realize that is an additional option ...
-j
Never heard of this technique! Will work on this tomorrow so I can get letters out on Monday.
Thank you!!
@AllZero wrote:@SophieHowl Welcome to the myFICO forum.
For immediate score relief, work on your reported utilization. Seek AZEO All Zero Except one card reporting a balance. Individual 1-29% utilization. Aggregate 1-9% utilization.
Depending on available funds, perhaps pick the low hanging fruit, so to speak. Look at the original creditor or collection agency that will PFD Pay For Delete.
If PFD is not available, seek The Saturation Technique: Best GW adjustment odds.
Pull your credit report and see which ones are outside the SOL Statute Of Limitations to devise a game plan. AnnualCreditReport Free weekly 3 bureau online reports through April 2021.
Hit up Credit One with the GW letters. They are the only ones that will remove charge offs. And Midland will do the same also if settled or PIF if its overv 2 yrs old. The other CO's will still ding. At least 2 of them can be deleted.
@Anonymous wrote:Unless you can delete them, the chargeoffs aren't going to gain you much by paying them, so I would first focus on the usage of your open accounts.
1 - pay off the $30 CapOne and be done with it. Low hanging fruit is the quickest and easiest and having another card at zero never hurts. One less bill next month and a better look for your profile. Done!
2 - Target is at 72% and you planned to pay that off in the next few weeks. The other two CapOne cards are at 76% and 78% respectively. Rather than pay off Target, use that money this way:
Pay $848 on Target to get to 38% ($955 remaining balance). This puts you in a more acceptable usage range for the card that will buy you some breathing room. You will drop through two scoring thresholds on this payment and stand to gain a few points from doing so. Done!
With the remaining money of that $1803, pay off both Cap One cards. That gives you five cards at zero, one with a balance. Done!
2 - next month when you were going to pay off the CapOne cards, put that money toward Target instead. Pay off all of the card and let it report zero. At the same time, put a $10 charge on one of your CapOne cards and let it report. Now you'll still have five cards at zero, but the one with a balance is a major bank card and is reporting a small fractional balance. This puts you into what we call AZEO - All Zero Except One. - which @AllZero alluded to above. The idea behind it is to show the smallest usage possible on one card with all others reporting zero. This is the ideal look and can be worth 10-15 points, profile dependent. Your gains may be truncated some because of the derogs but this gives you the best look for your scores and lenders going forward. Will do.
Once you have established AZEO, turn to the derogs. Who currently owns each debt? If you list the collection agencies, we can help you formulate a plan to go after them with the best results the fastest. List them out with original creditor/balance/limit/current owner of the debt/date of first delinquency. Like this:
Blaze MC/$587/$500/Portfolio Recovery/4-2018
Credit One/$1250/$1250/Midland Credit/May-2018
That is reporting to EQ and TU only. Everything else is a charge-off.
With this info, we can help you plan how to attack your derogs and clean things up
THANK YOU!!!
@FireMedic1 wrote:Hit up Credit One with the GW letters. They are the only ones that will remove charge offs. And Midland will do the same also if settled or PIF if its overv 2 yrs old. The other CO's will still ding. At least 2 of them can be deleted.
Okay, I will start with the C1 letters. Thank you!!