@Anonymous wrote:Hi, I'm new to these forums. I've just recently started my quest to repair my credit and navigating it has had some challenges for me. After going through a divorce at a young age, living paycheck to paycheck, acquiring a ton of new debt, I kind of gave up on ever really repairing the damage I'd done. Now I'm on a mission to one day own a home after 20 years of renting and ready to get it together.
I ran my report thinking it was going to be horrible due to hospital bills in collection etc... while it's for sure not great I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I've got 3 collections (same hospital trip) that fall off 2/2020 that unfortunately I can't pay.Question 1, come February will my score improve once they are removed? If so how soon can I look forward to that?Question 2, out of all my credit cards, loans etc I have one that I fell behind on payments in 2018 for 4 months. Have had the account 15 + years and only had those 4 consecutive months of late payments and that is it. I have looked into " a goodwill adjustment" and just Googling the creditors name + a goodwill adjustment seems that it is not likely they would do that even with 180 months of on time payments and only 4 late. Is there anything else I can do? Is it hurting my score significantly?Sorry for the long read. I am new to this whole thing and appreciate any suggestions.Jen-
You can send verification letters to the bureaus. Sometimes that results in a negative being removed.
Grats on taking the first steps to rebuild. As far as your medical collections, you could try googling the "HIPPA Act" for collections (not allowed to be discussed here) and see if that might help you get them removed early, though with the fall off being only a few months away, I'd maybe just ride it out.
As for your four lates, were they 30 day only, or 30/60/90 day lates? 30 and 60 day lates only really hurt the first couple of years, though of course they remain for a full 7 years on the report. 90+ day lates bring down your score all 7 years. I know you said the GW technique may not yield any results with your current creditor, but it still wouldn't hurt to try. You can explain in the letter what happened and maybe someone will listen.
Good luck!
