20 Collections!

[Anonymous]

Hello, looking for some advice. I’ve been reading different forums and figuring out how to nail down my credit.

Current scores: 510, 520, 530

Goal: 650 in 6 months. (Possible?)

I have no credit cards. I will be getting a secured card next week. 2 on time student loans, and 20 collections. Should I dispute them with validation letters first then tackle the ones that validate properly? Should I pay for delete? How did you tackle excessive collections?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

What source are you using for your credit scores?

PFD is probably the best way to go.  You shouldn't dispute accounts that are in fact correctly reported.

Keep in mind that if you have 20 collections, removing 19 of them may result in little to no score gain.  This isn't to discourage you from cleaning up your report, as less negative items is always going to be better upon a manual review from a human being.  I'm just letting you know from a scoring perspective, the biggest gain you see comes when your last/final/only major negative item like a collection is removed.

Adding a secured card will definitely help you, as currently you are showing no revolving credit use.  You'll probably see a 10-15 point gain once your revolver reports, so long as it has a small non-zero balance reported (which should be your target every cycle).

[Thomas_Thumb]

BBS, I think you are underestimating the impact of a revolver on Fico 8 score. If OP has no revolving credit as stated, adding a revolving account  may net 40 to 50 points. When Fico 8 1st  made an appearance, those with installment only files saw a rather pronounced drop in score relative to the older Fico 04 and Fico 98 scoring models. 

Revelate can expound on this as I was not a MyFICO member back in the early days.

Anyway, hope the OP obtains a secured credit card and then reports back impact on score after a couple months of use at a hopefully low utilization.

[Anonymous]

I very well may be, as I've never seen a data point going from no revolver to 1 revolver.  I was thinking along the lines of already having a revolver, but then showing revolving credit use I suppose. 

[dynamicvb]

I can share a data point on this. I was discharged  bk13 May 2017 and had no revolvers of any kind and the same true of my wife. We each got a card in April and added each other as AUs. At the time she was about 570 EX and I was 626 The CLs on both card where 400. Hers reported first and she got a 53 point jump. I got 17 as an AU. When mine reported after two months. I got another 33 points and she picked up an additional 10. Just an FYI

[Anonymous]

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@dynamicvbI can share a data point on this. I was discharged  bk13 May 2017 and had no revolvers of any kind and the same true of my wife. We each got a card in April and added each other as AUs. At the time she was about 570 EX and I was 626 The CLs on both card where 400. Hers reported first and she got a 53 point jump. I got 17 as an AU. When mine reported after two months. I got another 33 points and she picked up an additional 10. Just an FYI

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Unfortunately the data points above aren't clean.  What I mean is that if you both experienced score gains from the first revolver showing up (AU or not) then you were already at no revolvers, so you wouldn't get a no revolver to having a revolver score gain when the second one reported.  If the first one appeared and it reported a $0 balance and the second one appeared and reported a balance, perhaps that would result in an additional gain.  If that wasn't the case, the score gain(s) you saw from the second revolver appearing on your CR(s) was not the cause of the score gains, but rather other factors.

[uga03]

I don’t know situation but I assume that with 20 collection accounts that some of these are duplicates from third party collectors. I would find these & dispute as duplicates if applicable. It may work for some & some it may not work but removal of any collection accounts is a positive step. You may not see a score boosts initially but you’ll increase any gain from other positive factors as time goes by without any newcnegative factors hitting your credit. Open a new revolving account as soon as you can so when any remaining collections fall off you have an aged account with a positive history. The most significant impact for you is going to be building a positive credit history so whatever you do, do not let anymore negative marks hit your credit.

[AndySoCal]

First, I would look at each collection account and answer the question Is this my debt? If unsure sent the collection agency a debt validation letter. If you come accross two collection accounts that are the same debt then dispute both of those as duplicate. Those that are yours and you know it you can offer payment in full for deletetion of  the reporting of the account (PFD).  If you could post who the collection agencies are some others on forum can tell you if they PFD friendly or not. Also the type debt being collected on IE medical debt, credit card etc would help as well.

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dynamicvbI can share a data point on this. I was discharged  bk13 May 2017 and had no revolvers of any kind and the same true of my wife. We each got a card in April and added each other as AUs. At the time she was about 570 EX and I was 626 The CLs on both card where 400. Hers reported first and she got a 53 point jump. I got 17 as an AU. When mine reported after two months. I got another 33 points and she picked up an additional 10. Just an FYI

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Unfortunately the data points above aren't clean.  What I mean is that if you both experienced score gains from the first revolver showing up (AU or not) then you were already at no revolvers, so you wouldn't get a no revolver to having a revolver score gain when the second one reported.  If the first one appeared and it reported a $0 balance and the second one appeared and reported a balance, perhaps that would result in an additional gain.  If that wasn't the case, the score gain(s) you saw from the second revolver appearing on your CR(s) was not the cause of the score gains, but rather other factors.

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Are you certain? It seems we have gone from “no datapoints going from no revolver to one revolver” to now looking into “no revolvers to an AU created”, also with not much reference material.

The additional possibility is that going from “no revolvers to an AU” or adding an AU to an account, might have a different score improvement?  

Given negatives on the account, that does confuse the scoring regardless. But the act of adding a revolver from zero revolvers seems to provide a significant score gain. The AU as a second account on the way to three revolvers would seem to impart some benefit. 

[Anonymous]

Andy,

Thanks for the message. I can post the collectors. These are the collectors: 

PlusFour

Byl Services

Enhanced Recovery Company

Credit Collection Services

Direct Recovery Associates

Jefferson Captial

Americollect

Cavalry Portfolio Services

Medicredit Inc

Account Corp of Southern Nevada

Accounts Receivable

Aargon Agency

Online Information Systems

Tek Collect Inc

Professional Credit Services

Any input helps. I have noticed one weird thing as one CRA deleted a line but the other said it met FCRA. Do they have different rules as to why one would delete and the other would keep the line item on? 

Thanks for everyones help.