Starting over... again.

[wantitgone]

Hi all. It's been a while since I posted here. Short story: my credit was bad for a while after I lost my car, led to job loss. Etc. I rebuilt. By mid-2018, my scores were nearly 700 across the board. I paid on time, never late, and was doing fine until my marriage fell apart, my father was dying, I had to move, etc. All within 10 months. Perfect storm. I wasn't even late when I contacted an attorney because I knew I was about to be in trouble and I was incredibly embarrassed at the time, but even my attorney complimented my juggling skills considering the hard dive my income took once again.

Either way, I had to file bankruptcy and it was filed in March. I had my 341 meeting on May 6th. Now I'm waiting for discharge. IIB (~rough amounts) were Barclaycard (1.5k), Two Cap ones (6k and 2.4k), Two Chase cards (1.3k, 1.6k), Comenity/Wayfair (600), Discover (1.1k), CareCredit (5.8k), Synchrony/Newegg (2.8k), Target Credit (1.3k). I had a car loan with roughly 14k left on it.

I had a few accounts at zero, including Fingerhut, Ann Taylor/Loft, and VS, but they all closed my accounts anyway. I previously had an Amex that was paid off and closed over a year ago by my request.

Everything has closed on all my reports already. My CK scores are listed as 680 TU, 675 EQ, Creditwise says 680 as does WalletHub (I really want to keep an eye on things, lol), NAV says my Experian VS is 676. The Experian app has my FICOs listed as 559 EX, 587 EQ, and 491 TU. I know the first #s are Vantagescore, but the disparity is a little boggling.

Anything I've done so far is after my discussion with my attorney. I opened a self-lender account for 12 months, to have something current reporting and for myself to save money ($89/month will give me a good chunk of money for savings in a year). I know I burned a lot of big players in credit so felt I was going to have to accept less than great stuff for a bit! After my meeting, the attorney advised trying to get a credit card, even if a tiny one, and I did ask if it would affect my bankruptcy. He assured me it wouldn't (you know, besides if I tried to cancel and file on new debt, would be fraud and stupid to do) and so I did. I was approved for a CreditOne card for $500. I do plan to get a secured card through NFCU (I recently was able to become a member because my sister uses them and is in the military) here in a couple months after discharge. But that will be it and I'm going to PIF ever month. I have zero interest in having a bunch of cards ever again because life just changes way too fast and too much for me to feel comfortable having that much credit at my disposal. Also, not reaffirming my car loan because the car is worth a lot less than I owe and I'm looking for an alternative option to get a diff vehicle.

So here's to at least getting to a decent place where people will at least rent to me without side-eye @ my bankrutpcy.

ETA: any idea on the disparity between vantage and fico?

[Anonymous]

Good Luck on your rebuild...you did it before, you can do it again.

[simplegirl]

They score things differently. Vantage scores don’t include things that Fico includes.

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[wantitgone]

Thanks. By looking, I can see that VS seems to wipe out the payment history when the stuff IIB zeroes out, but FICO seems to still include the late payments. My student loans are also appearing closed on the reports, so they will reopen when the bankruptcy is discharged. Mostly I guess it's just a waiting game at this point to see how it evens out and then I'll go from there.

[ThetoriParadox]

You've got this! You have all the tools to get back to where you were. This is an awesome resource, as you know, full of support and wisdom!! Good luck to you!

[wantitgone]

Pulled my FICO scores today so I'll have something to compare to later on. They are EQ 608, TU 514, EX 585. This is with my one new credit card reporting.

I can't really figure out why TU is so low compared to the other two. My payment history is poor across all three (of course with the bankruptcy), but EQ has two poor's, while TU only has one, and TU is the lowest. Lol. I may not ever understand how they all differ so widely. Also, my inquiries in the last 12 months across is 1 EX, 4 TU, and 4 EQ.

Issue (?) I see right now on all three FICOs is that most of my negative accounts aren't reported as closed on EQ or EX, just on TU, although it seems they are all reporting as IIB and $0. So I'll keep an eye on these.

Looks like my bankruptcy discharge date is set for around 7/08.

The discharge should reopen 1 private student loan (which I will have to be making payments on) and 18 federal student loans (which were in income based repayment deferral and will have to be recertified). I tried to do them while in bankruptcy but the system acts as if they don't exist, so I couldn't recertify "on time". Hopefully that doesn't hurt me? I don't know how that works. So I'll have those 19 accounts plus the self-lender and two credit cards (one is on its way). Weirdly, EX has my loans listed as CO in April (when they finally showed as bankruptcy) but the other two don't.

I'm hoping to open the secured card with Merrick once my discharge is on my credit because at least that one will graduate, or I might try with NCFU since I'll have aged my account with them by 4 months and have income going in/out.

We'll see. Even though I did a lot of work before, I never really bothered checking my FICO scores ever!

[wantitgone]

Decided instead of opening a new thread, I'd just update mine.

My BK 7 was discharged today, so yay for that!

I've got two credit cards, already have a prequal for Cap1 with a set APR but not going to app for that or anything else until my CR's are updated. I've decided since I do a lot of driving for work (aka lots of mileage), I'm going to keep my car for now, even though it was included in BK and won't report (I have been paying on time the whole BK process). Give myself 6 months to a year to save up either a big down payment or being able to buy something outright. Right now I'm working on getting rid of anything I have payments for (I have a computer through Flexshopper I'm going to pay off completely soon) and plan on having $4k saved by end of year. I've never had savings before, so I'm thrilled!

So here's to rebuilding and finally having a safety net!