I'm trying to rebuild my credit. I had very good credit until I lost my job in December of 2008. Unfortunately, I had a lot of debt and didn't find another job, so eventually I filed for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy was filed in Feb of 2009 and finalized in May 2009, chapter 7.
On the bright side, I only had one late payment recorded when I filed. Unfortunately the foreclosure on the house I owned then still hasn't gone through. I didn't reaffirm it because I relocated looking for work. So, one day I'm sure that will still hit my credit.
I have one collections on my credit, it's not a legitimate collections. It was from Verizon. I put my home phone on vacation mode and they kept screwing it up and overcharging me. I finally got my phone disconnected and they said I didn't owe anything. I still have the chat saved from customer service stating it was a mistake and I didn't owe anything. But, in June after my bankruptcy finalized they sent $120 to collections. Basically, they lied and said I didn't owe anything else so that I wouldn't include it on my bankruptcy. That finally got sold to another collector who has made no attempt to collect the debt, I've never gotten anything from them, but they have stuck it on my credit report. Apparently realized they couldn't actually collect it, but stuck it there anyhow.
I haven't pulled my credit in years, but I signed up for CreditKarma so I could see what else is happening with my credit, though I understand the score isn't accurate.
In the meantime I've gone back to college, gotten about a $2000 student loan, direct subsidized. I only work part time, but I went ahead and appllied for the Journeys card through Capital One. I was approved for a $1000.00 credit limit. I also had a 12 year old Maurices store card through WFNNB that was still showing up active even though I haven't had that card in years. I reapplied to attempt to reopen that account as it's my oldest account. I used to work for another store that offered cards managed by WFNNB and reapplying just reopened your old account, so I'm hoping that holds true now. I was approved, but with a $50 lower limit than was shown on my creditkarma, but my income is lower than it was 12 years ago. It hasn't shown up as a hard pull yet though I applied a couple days before the Capital One card and that pull has already shown up.
Anyhow, are just two active cards enough to rebuild credit with? Is there anything else I should be doing? Should I dispute the collection or just pay it?
(edited to add that I pulled my credit report here, looks like I'm starting from 615)
Thank you, I had to do some reading to figure out what PFD meant, but, also found a spiffy sample letter. Should be a fun weekend project and another step in the right direction.
So, with one card it would be wise to pay as soon as a balance posts (Ex. use it once a month, pay it a couple days later when it finally posts and carry $0 balance to statement) and then with the other card make sure it DOES have a balance whenever they post the statement?
Well, it looks like one collections has come off my credit reports. After reading about the creditor a bit I decided not to bother DV'ing or PFD'ing, instead I went straight to dispute and file complaint with BBB since that one had clearly been included in bankruptcy and discharged before they bought it. Dispute with Experian shows updated and they were the only one that had it, neither TU nor Equifax had that one listed.
Still puzzling out how to deal with the last one, they're scummy and apparently prone to reselling it, so may do a PFD with agreement that they not sell it again? I dunno, seems like the best way to make that permanently go away since it's a low dollar amount.
The first of the three credit cards I got finally reported and creditkarma reported a score increase, so I decided to go ahead and pull transunion here and enjoy my 21 point score increase.. lol.
Since that collection wasn't on transunion, I assume the jump was just from finally having an active account again. Good thing I can't get my experian score anywhere, that way I'm not tempted to pay for it.