Where to start...? Need to develop a plan! Will update progress.

[Intergalactic57]

Hey everyone, 

I want to thank everyone here for all the useful topics.  I've been browsing and reading as much as I can.  I'm currently in a bad situation overall and was hoping to get some advice on how to best start and proceed.  I realize I have a long way to go and that I didn't get in this situation overnight and won't get out of it overnight either.  Here is the rundown:

As of 06/24/21

Equifax:  554

Transunion:  566

Experian:  529

Revolving Utilization:  153%

I do not have any active credit cards.  This is from accounts that were charged off, some a long time ago, but still negatively impacting my utilization.  These are the 4 accounts affecting it:

US Bank:  49% utilization.  246/500  (Closed 01/2017)

Citi:  73% utilization.  364/500 (Closed 10/2016)

First Premier:  150% utilization.  451/300 (Closed 10/2016)

Discover:  181% utilization.  2710/1500 (Closed 9/2016)

Collections Accounts.  I have 7 accounts in collections across all 3 bureaus.  There are also approximately 3-5 that are not being reported.  (For instance, report shows Portfolio Recovery as having 2 accounts in collections, but on PR website there are 3 there).  Here are the amounts for the 7 being reported.

Portfolio Recovery	$724.00
Portfolio Recovery	$285.00
LVNV	$642.00
Trident Access	$628.00
Progressive	$323.00
Enhanced Recovery	$398.00
Jefferson Capital	$370.00

So these are the areas that are really hurting my score overall.  I have an autoloan that is nearly paid off.  No mortage.  

If you were in this situation, what would you do first?  My thought is to try to settle all 7 collection accounts first.  I was thinking of offering 20%, then 25%, 30%, etc.  If those were all paid and deleted, how would you estimate that would impact my score?

As for the utilization, I recognize that's a huge negative factor right now.  How would you approach this?  Would any of the above settle?

I'd love some advice.  Right now my preliminary plan is to pay off all the collection accounts in July.  Afterwards, I'll focus on the utilization.  Would it be wortwhile to get a secured card after or before paying the collections accounts?

Thank you everyone.

[Sandman771]

portfolio will delete once you pay them. Log into their website and you will see an offer and pay in full. Either option will end up in deletion. The open acounts pay them for sure as well and then try to get the other collection accounts to pay for delete. You will be doing well at that point. Somewhere along the way you want to try to get a secured card. maybe open sky or something with your bank. Even if it doesn't graduate you need to have a current-paid open revolver. Then eventually you have to just let time do its thing. 

[Slowlyrebuilding]

Have you heard from or talked to Jefferson Capital yet? They offered me 40% off and once you pay it off they give you a no annual fee credit card for the amount paid off. In my case my $1000 balance was settled for $600 and they are issuing a $600 credit card. Could help your utilization

[OmarGB9]

---

@Slowlyrebuilding wrote:

Have you heard from or talked to Jefferson Capital yet? They offered me 40% off and once you pay it off they give you a no annual fee credit card for the amount paid off. In my case my $1000 balance was settled for $600 and they are issuing a $600 credit card. Could help your utilization

---

Jefferson Capital isn't a lender. They're just a CA that collects on behalf of a lender. Whoever originally owned your account gave you that deal, not Jefferson Capital.

[Intergalactic57]

I haven't reached out to any of them yet.  Would a settlement still be considered paid and result in a deletion or is that something I would need explicity agreed them each CA?

[Anonymous]

---

@Intergalactic57 wrote:

Hey everyone, 

I want to thank everyone here for all the useful topics.  I've been browsing and reading as much as I can.  I'm currently in a bad situation overall and was hoping to get some advice on how to best start and proceed.  I realize I have a long way to go and that I didn't get in this situation overnight and won't get out of it overnight either.  Here is the rundown:

As of 06/24/21

Equifax:  554

Transunion:  566

Experian:  529

Revolving Utilization:  153%

I do not have any active credit cards.  This is from accounts that were charged off, some a long time ago, but still negatively impacting my utilization.  These are the 4 accounts affecting it:

US Bank:  49% utilization.  246/500  (Closed 01/2017)

Citi:  73% utilization.  364/500 (Closed 10/2016)

First Premier:  150% utilization.  451/300 (Closed 10/2016)

Discover:  181% utilization.  2710/1500 (Closed 9/2016)

Collections Accounts.  I have 7 accounts in collections across all 3 bureaus.  There are also approximately 3-5 that are not being reported.  (For instance, report shows Portfolio Recovery as having 2 accounts in collections, but on PR website there are 3 there).  Here are the amounts for the 7 being reported.

Portfolio Recovery	$724.00
Portfolio Recovery	$285.00
LVNV	$642.00
Trident Access	$628.00
Progressive	$323.00
Enhanced Recovery	$398.00
Jefferson Capital	$370.00

So these are the areas that are really hurting my score overall.  I have an autoloan that is nearly paid off.  No mortage.  

If you were in this situation, what would you do first?  My thought is to try to settle all 7 collection accounts first.  I was thinking of offering 20%, then 25%, 30%, etc.  If those were all paid and deleted, how would you estimate that would impact my score?

As for the utilization, I recognize that's a huge negative factor right now.  How would you approach this?  Would any of the above settle?

I'd love some advice.  Right now my preliminary plan is to pay off all the collection accounts in July.  Afterwards, I'll focus on the utilization.  Would it be wortwhile to get a secured card after or before paying the collections accounts?

Thank you everyone.

---

Portfolio, LVNV, and Jefferson will settle and PFD. Jefferson will delete once the CA is 2 years from DoFD (date of first delinquency) - not the date the CA was open. So that is a great start. Thing is with CAs, you will not get the biggest boost until all the CAs are deleted/age off.

Who is the Progressive CA with?

I am not sure about Trident, search the forums to see if others have gotten PFD with them.

The biggest hurdle for these CAs will be Enhanced Recovery. They do not do PFD right off the bat, so that will be your biggest focus to work on getting removed one way or another. If you search the forums, others have experiences where they were able to get it done. Hopefully this is something that will age off soon or you can request early exclusion for or get the debt recalled by the original creditor. 

I always say to start by pulling all 3 CRs from annual credit report for free (no scores, but not important). Each report spells out when the accounts will age off. Then you can triage where to put your efforts ($$$). If something is going to age off soon or you can request early exclusion for soon, then you can focus your money elsewhere.

TU will list "estimated date of removal"

EX will list "on record until"

EQ will list your actual "date of first delinquency" (not the also listed "major delinquency first reported") and add 7 years to that date, the account will age off a month or so before then.

If you can get those dates, we can help you further. This even includes your COs, but it looks like those will be around until 2023 or so, and I would focus on settling those up. Maybe you will have more luck with the CAs being older.

Charge offs are weighing you down heavily. It is next to impossible to get a PFD from an original creditor, but it never hurts to ask, just keep your expectations in check. Reducing your utilization from these COs will greatly help your scores, any regular reporting will stop, and your scores can begin to recover. You can settle for less in agreement with the OC and they will still update the balance to $0. This can take 1 ir 2 updates, so be patient. Same for CAs, it can a couple updates for PFDs.

Once you clean up your reports, you can work on building new credit, which will start to help you immensely since you have no open and postivie/avtive credit lines.

Good luck!

[mja1970]

Definitely start with those collection accounts.  That should be your first priority.  Like you said, this will take some time, but it absolutely can be done.  Do your best to negotiate the collection accounts down to a reasonable amount that you know you can afford in exchange for deletion, even if you have to set up payment arrangements and pay them off over a period of time.  Just do whatever you have to do to get it done.  Make sure you get letters from every collection agency you settle with saying that they will delete the collection accounts from your credit reports once they are paid off.  Someone else suggested getting a couple of secured credit cards.  Absolutely do this.  These will help you tremendously as long as you use them properly and keep your credit utilization low (this has a HUGE impact on your score) and never miss any payments.  You probably have a thin credit file right now since you don't have any active cards, so secured cards are a must right now.  This will allow you to establish some positive credit.  Capital One, Citibank, and Discover all have very good secured cards (I have all three of them).  My wife and I did this when we were rebuiling our credit and it brought our scores up about 100 points over a period of about 6-8 months.  We now have 12 credit cards and scores in the 700s.  We wouldn't have gotten here without those secured cards.  

Between settling and paying off the collection accounts and getting them deleted from your reports and getting some secured cards to get you started on rebuilding your credit, you should be in pretty decent shape by the end of the year/beginning of next year.

[Intergalactic57]

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

Next week I'm going to knock out the PR and at least one other collections.  I'll also apply for the OpenSky card.  

I'll keep updating this thread on the progress overall.

[Intergalactic57]

7/8/21 Update

I just paid the 2 PRA accounts that were on my file.  I agreed to a PFD on both!

[Sandman771]

it took almost 60 days for my last PRA to fall off. So just be patient. Great job by the way. Hopefully the open sky will treat you well.  This stuff works I went and checked pre-approval on DCU's website and I was pre-approved for a loan. I went to FNBO (which there is no way for me to get anything there) and I was pre-approved for a secured card which is something I've never seen on their website, so that is a step in the right direction