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I've recently finished school, gotten a decent job, and am finally making the "medium bucks." I've got some credit card balances, but a few of them have pretty high interest rates (25%+). What are the best strategies for getting lower rates now? Does just calling and asking ever work? What about writing an e-mail to the CEO and explaining how I've worked hard to improve my situation as an adult and now I'm trying to get my balances paid off, but it would be easier with a lower rate? Anything else I should try?

bump. Anybody else?

I am an authorized user on several of my parents' cards. Two of them show up on my EX report. They were opened in 1993 and 1999. Four of them show up on my EQ report. They were opened in 1986, two in 1993 (one of which is now closed), and 1999. On EX, my oldest account is 19 years, and my AAOA is 5 years. My EX FICO is 750. On EQ, my oldest account is 26 years, and my AAOA is 8 years. My EQ FICO is 753. On my TU report, however, none of the cards on which I am an authorized user show up. Accordingly, my oldest account on TU is 8 years, and my AAOA is 2 years. My TU FICO is only 712. Why aren't these accounts showing up? Is there any way that I can get these AU accounts to appear on my TU report? My other questions: I have several inquiries on my EQ report that look like duplicates. (I'm not sure if they are or not. I recently opened a couple of credit cards with credit unions, so they might be separate hard pulls for membership and the card.) I have two on the same date from Delta Community Credit Union, and two a week apart from PenFed. Can I call EQ and get the duplicate removed? Finally, I think my dad has an Amex credit card that he's had open for a while. If he adds me as an AU on that card, will my member date backdate on my Amex Zync card? If so, will that date show up on my credit reports? Also, I'm not sure how the payment history is on that card--it might have had a 30 day late or two. Assuming the backdating works, is it possible to get removed as an AU and keep the backdate?

Illinois makes this very simple. Once the judgement is paid, you can file a Release and Satisfaction of Judgement, and the judgement is vacated. It can be as simple as calling the creditor's attorney and asking that they file the Release and Satisfaction. They might have the paperwork in their office showing that you paid. If not, get a copy of your receipt, or canceled check, or something like that, and fax it to them. It's a very simple procedure. Once the order to vacate has been entered, write a letter to the CRAs demanding that they remove the information. ETA: From Illinois Legal Aid: http://www.illinoislegalaid.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.dsp_content&contentID=7144&print=yes

So I ended up applying for US Bank Cash+ Visa Signature, Amex Zync, and Discover Cashback Bonus. I was approved for Amex Zync, and Discover Cashback Bonus with a $2000 CL. US Bank denied me for the Cash+ Visa Signature, but offered me the Flex Perks Cash Rewards card. It's not as good a card, but I didn't want to waste the hard pull, so I accepted the offer. They gave me a $5000 CL. Not bad, all in all.

I'm of course not going to apply for 31 cards. Those are just the ones that seem to me to be decent cards. I am waiting until the last collection is off before I apply for anything. You mentioned avoiding Citi because I have a past charge off. Why is this? Will I be blacklisted? I have read that they only blacklist for unpaid COs. Also, how many cards should I ultimately have? I figure generally the more available credit that I have, the better. That will keep my util down. I don't usually spend more than $1500 a month on credit cards, so I'd like to have about 10k in available credit as a minimum, but I can't imagine any downside to having more. Assuming I should ultimately have more than 4 or so cards, how often do I apply for new ones? If I can bump the inqs off of my reports, does it matter how long I wait? As long as I freeze EX, I should be able to get rid of inquiries in about a month if I do B* correctly, right? Or do I want to avoid this in case I get a manual review and they see that my cards are all pretty new? I'd like to get as many cards as I can as soon as possible, because I'd like to have more older accounts down the road when I'm looking to purchase a house or something. My AAOA will take a big hit as I get new cards, but it should help in the long term, right?

My credit reports are now almost spotless. I have one medical collection that is due to age off or disappear due to an obsolete dispute in the very near future. My scores are: TU 758 on 6/9/12, EQ 769 on 6/17/12, and EX FAKO (from creditsesame.com) 715 on 6/17/12, and VantageScore (from CreditKarma.com) 770 on 6/17/12. The only other thing hurting my scores is AAOA and length of credit history. I have two inquiries on my reports--one is almost two years old, and one is a year old. I currently have two credit cards: I have an Orchard Bank (HSBC, now Capital One) Mastercard with a CL of $1,200, and a Capital One Mastercard with a CL of $500. I am an AU on several of my parents' cards, and have been for many years. I previously had a Citi credit card that was a paid charge off, but it has now aged off of my reports. I'm 30 years old, and I make about $40,000 a year, but I'm starting a side business that should add $10,000 to $20,000 in income a year. I am not in the market for a new car or a house in the near future, so I'm not too worried about dinging my credit score with a bunch of applications. I also figure it's a good idea to knock out a bunch of them at once, because they'll all age out at the same time. Also, once I have a handful of good credit cards, I don't plan on applying for anything else for quite some time. How many cards should I apply for? I figure I should be leaning towards prime cards, since my scores are now pretty decent. The cards I'm considering applying for are: *Citi Forward Visa (no annual fee and 5x Amazon rewards) *PenFed Visa Platinum Cash Rewards Card (5% back on gas) *Fidelity Investment Rewards Visa Signature Card (no annual fee) *Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Plus Visa Signature Card ($69/yr) or Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Visa Signature Card ($99/yr) since I tend to fly Southwest domestically. *Saks Fifth Avenue World Elite Mastercard (no annual fee and World Elite perks) *US Bank Cash+ Visa Signature (no annual fee and good rewards) *Barclaycard Rewards World Mastercard (no annual fee) *RBS Platinum Mastercard (no annual fee) *UBS Visa Signature Card (no annual fee) *PNC CashBuilder Visa Credit Card (no annual fee) *Wells Fargo Cash Back Visa (no annual fee) *Ameriprise World Mastercard (no annual fee) *Bank of America BankAmericard Travel Rewards Visa Signature Card (no annual fee) *Starwood Preferred Guest Amex ($65/yr) *Chase Sapphire Preferred ($95/yr) or Chase Sapphire (no annual fee) *Delta Community Credit Union Platinum Rewards Visa Card (no annual fee and primary insurance on rental cars) *Patelco Visa Platinum (no annual fee) *PSECU Visa *Nasa Federal Credit Union Platinum Cash Rewards Card (no annual fee) *Navy Federal Credit Union Platinum Card (no annual fee) *Lockheed Federal Credit Union Visa Platinum (no annual fee) *Justice Federal Credit Union Visa Platinum Rewards Card (no annual fee) *Alliant Credit Union Platinum Rewards Visa Card (no annual fee) *American Express Zync or American Express Green Charge Card *American Express Blue Cash Everyday or American Express Blue Cash Preferred *Chase Marriott Rewards Visa Signature Card ($45/yr) *Chase Hyatt Card ($75/yr) *British Airways Visa Signature Card ($95/yr) *Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage($95/yr) or Citi Gold AAdvantage Card ($50/yr) *Discover More Card (no annual fee) or Discover Miles Card (no annual fee) *JCB Card (no annual fee) I probably shouldn't apply for all 31 of these. How many should I apply for? Which ones should I apply for first? Also, how do I mitigate the damage of all the inquiries. I figure I can B* the TU and EQ pulls. Should I freeze my EX report before I apply? Is there any way of spreading out the inquiries so that only a few appear per report?

Wow. It turns out none of my other questions mattered. I received two letters from the CA today. The first one says that the account has been removed from collections with their agency, and that they will no longer attempt to collect it. The second one says that they requested that it be removed from my credit file. They actually apologized for any "inconvenience this error may have caused." I'm not entirely sure how that worked, but you're a genius WhyChat. Thank you!

I lied. I actually have two more questions. 1) The address for CSC Credit Services is a PO Box. Do I still send it with a return receipt? Or should I just send it Certified? 2) The report that I disputed with Experian had one report number. When they responded to it, there was a different report number on their letter. Which one do I use in my follow up letter?

Three more quick questions: I sent my pre-HIPAA letter to Equifax, but the response came from CSC Credit Services. Who do I send the follow up letter to? Should I send it to CSC or Equifax? Second, should the follow up letter also be in a purple italic font to foil the OCR scanners? Third, the TL showed part of the account number X'd out on my report. My pre-HIPAA letter quoted it exactly from the report. In CSC's response, they used the full account number. In my follow up letter, should I use the full account number, or the X'd out number from my report?

My credit reports are almost entirely clean. TU FICO score, as of today is 758. I have no negative TLs and only one inquiry almost exactly a year ago. According to my report, the only things hurting my score are "You have not established a long revolving credit history" and "You have a short credit history." My first revolving account was opened 2 years and 8 months ago. My oldest account was opened a little over 7 years ago (car note), and my AAOA is 3 years. EQ FICO score, as of two days ago, was 700. I have one collection that should be gone in a couple of days. (I am on the last step of WhyChat's HIPAA process.) The report also says that I have a short credit history, even though my oldest account is 18.5 years old (I am an AU on one of my parents' cards.) and my AAOA is 7 years. I also have one inquiry on this report. EX report is a little shakier for now, but is close to being clean. I have a 7 year old paid CO, and two almost 7 year old collections, both of which I have disputed as obsolete. We'll see what happens there, but even if they don't delete, they'll be gone in six months. I also have the collection account that I'm attacking with WhyChat's HIPAA process. I have two inquiries on this report. I'm an AU on two of my parents' cards (opened in 86 and 93), and also one of theirs that is now closed. Ideally, I'd like to be over 800 FICO. I'd also like to have, ultimately, 40,000 or 50,000 worth of available credit. What should my next steps be? My parents have stellar credit, so I'm going to ask them to add me as an AU to all of their cards. Is there any way to get these to report to other CRAs? Some of the cards on which I'm an AU only report on one CRA's report. In my own name, I have two credit cards - a Cap One with a $500 limit, and a HSBC (now Cap One also) with a $1200 limit. I assume that I should apply for some better cards right away. I know I should freeze my Experian report. Should I freeze my Lakeside Information Resources and Advanced Resolution Services reports as well? I figure it would be best to apply all at once for multiple cards for three reasons--one, that way, they will all drop off of my report at the same time; two, I probably won't have to apply for any more credit for a while, so the inquiries won't matter; and three, if I can manage to B* them, it'll be easier if they're all together. (Also, on the topic of applying for new credit cards, my paid CO was with Citi 7 years ago. Do they blacklist for paid COs?) I have a decent amount of cash saved now. I also don't have anything on my credit report except revolving credit. I have read that multiple types of credit--and especially real estate--help credit scores. I have also heard that the amount of the loan doesn't matter as much as the existence of it. Should I spend a thousand dollars on a small chunk of land in the middle of nowhere, Nevada or something, and take a real estate loan? Or is that not worth the hassle and work? What are the things that would best help my credit score? I'm pushing 30, so it's about time for me to have great credit. I screwed up a little as a student, and now that that's behind me, I'd like to set myself up well for the future. (For what it's worth, I don't foresee needing significant credit for the next couple of years, at least. My car is ten years old, but it's a pickup truck and has a bunch of miles left on it, and I'm not really in the market to buy a house for a while still. Of course, if I see a great deal, I'd like to be able to jump on it.)

One last question before I send these--do I give the CA any time to respond? Or do I just fire off the dispute letter to the CRAs as soon as I get the return receipt, knowing that the CA can't possibly respond appropriately?

I received a response from EX. They have also verified it. Just to confirm, I'm sending the following letter, right? Also, the EQ and EX reports have different addresses for the CA. Does it matter which I send it to? Should I send two separate CM envelopes, one to each address with the letter for the respective report?

Is there a downside to using the online dispute?

CSC Credit Services (Equifax) sent me a letter today verifying the account. What next? Should I wait until I hear from Experian?