DiggingOut

I understand that your request over the phone took place back before you had learned as much as you have now, but in effect it would be pretty much impossible for you to prove what was or was not included within a phone call. Thus, you might as well disregard that you had asked for a DV already since that was only during a verbal discussion. If you want the creditor to DV, write them. There have many, many previous posts in CB to consult about what to include - in short, keep a copy of what you write to them, and send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested. No, the number of years for which the tradeline will report on your CR is governed by the date when the account went past due, not by when you pay it off.

Why did a collector bill you? Because they want money for a debt. There are differences between the SOL, and the reportability of an (alleged) debt, and the ownership and/or existence of the debt itself. One could get billed/contacted for a debt twenty years old. Doesn't mean that the debt can still be reported nor whether, if sued, the case could be won by the plaintiff if the defendant responds correctly by claiming in court the legal protection provided by SOL limitations. Unless and until you've contacted the collector to claim a limited C&D, it's not surprising that they would make an attempt to get you to pay it. Why do CA's try to collect out-of-SOL debts? Because a certain percentage of people don't know their protections under SOL, and that if sued they could successfully defend the case against them. Other folks, like you, know that you can't be forced in court to pay it if you get sued and make your required appearance and defense. Others don't, so the CA hopes to scare those folks into paying.

Happy Kona-anniversary, Shawnee. Congrats!

First, focus on clean consistent performance from here on out. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be advantageous if you can get any of the lates removed -- but the severity of impact of past misdeeds lessens over time IF there aren't ANY newer ones added to the overall picture. Keep it clean henceforth. No overlimits, no lates - at all, if humanly possible. Some of the accounts, such as GEMBPPPLUS, seem to been for relatively small amounts owing but weren't paid promptly. Now the two of you have a strong focus toward your future and a goal in mind, so it can be easier to be more definite and attentive about always staying on track making every payment immediately after each month's bill gets issued. Pay early, and pay at least somewhat more than the minimum payment amount. Mortgage and car loan are clean. Those are good solid plusses toward your overall profile and history. CapOne is quite unlikely to take off any negative info by dispute or by request. On the account which is still open, keep it sparkling clean from this point forward. You had already gone sixty days late in just one year of history which was not good. You will do better in future, I'm certain. FIA or BOA might be worth a try for a goodwill letter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Don't count much on it. If you do gain any improvements at all, count them as gains. Have you read Stryker's post about the strategies and construction of the best possible goodwill requests, carefully tailored to each specific creditor and history? Once accounts have been closed and paid off for twentyfive to thirty months or more, many creditors will be likelier to archive old payment records. If you leave some of those alone till they're older, you might possibly get some success by disputing them with one or more of the CRA's as never late, even for CapOne. Rather than going back to pull up older records, some creditors MIGHT not bother to respond to a dispute via the CRA. The reported lates would, in that case, end up getting deleted from its history. I'd say, I see nothing here from which you can't recover well by careful attention and timeliness going forward.

With a clean history on this account and assuming that the rest of your CR has also been clean during the same period the past year or more, then yes, it probably would be worth a call. BOA does look not only at the history of this account but also at how the overall CR shapes up. That's why low utilization, or at worst no more than moderate, and other accounts reporting as being on time and so forth counts in your favor. For their general screenings to identify which accounts have developed into ready-to-convert-to-unsecured, I don't know if BOA typically pulls the actual CR data or uses just a score or qualifying-screening of some sort.

What was the language in your original lease/rental agreement? Just like most credit cards do, most contracts include provisions that costs of collection of the debt will apply. Court costs, fees, hourly rates, penalties, interest, etc. -- probably it would be very difficult to find a court which would be likely to decide this in your favor, namely, that the added amounts weren't part of the interest-plus-various-collection-costs which are covered, and thus are due from you.

It's not overdue. It probably will flow through to your CR within the next week or ten days. If you're not already aware of it, Orchard does not report by the statement date. It reports end of month figures. Back when I had Orchard, the update on each of the CRA's usually showed up sometime between the ninth or tenth of the month at the very earliest, to more typically around the eighteenth or twentieth or even a few days later. HSBC has a lot of different cards. Some of them report as of the statement date; others such as Orchard are EOM.

When did you open the $99/$500 card? And when you say "good with it", are you referring to April 2009 which was just half a dozen weeks ago or did you instead mean April 2008? BOA is not at all tolerant of any late pays or ever going overlimit especially during the semi-secured period. What was not good before April? If you did have any lates or overlimits then it probably will take about a year before BOA will consider going unsecured. That's a guesstimate but probably realistic in terms of BOA's typical criteria. BOA automatically reviews all its semi-secured accounts periodically to decide which ones have established a flawless history and are ready to be considered for going unsecured. Usually the very earliest that can happen will be after nine to twelve months. If you've had any problems keeping this account sparkling clean in the past, BOA will want to see a good long continuous period of perfect performance established before unsecuring it. You don't need to ask -- BOA will unsecure on its own when they're ready to do so.

Don't carry over a balance. It doesn't help you in any way. Pay off the entire account every month. FICO will score better for you if you don't have an amount owing reported for each account. Since at present you have only a few tradelines, and the truck loan of course will have an amount owing, you can improve your score a bit if you choose to pay off at least one, or both, of the credit cards each month BEFORE the account status gets updated to the CRA's.

Make your reason clear, briefly and plainly, in your dispute letter. Don't just use some vague generalized statement like "not mine". Point out concisely that the tradeline indicates you to be an authorized user but in fact you are not; you don't know about that account and do not wish it reported in your credit history. You don't need to explain anything further to the CRA but for your own knowledge, the reason that the merchant/creditor couldn't find you in their records probably stems from the simple fact that you aren't whoever in fact IS truly the authorized user on the account.

Not a problem. It's a fairly common occurrence. If the tradeline is being properly reported, it should be indicating that you are an AU, not the primary account holder.

Welcome to CreditBoards! Is it easier to get a negative removed from your CR after it's been paid off? The answer is, sometimes. The allowable maximum reporting period is the same* for unpaid and paid debts of the same type, but when you learn how to submit a well-chosen dispute, the fact that you paid this off years ago might in one important way help your odds of success. If/when you submit a dispute, Collect America would have to pull its records in order to correctly sustain their reporting. Since there is no longer any money at stake for the collection agency, there may be less motivation for them to do so. Rather than spend employee time on old paid off records, the agency might prefer to have their employees' time directed to collecting on some debt which is still owed, on which the agency can make its fees. Thus, the agency MIGHT decide just to withdraw the reporting if that's quicker and easier for them to do. You asked why it's reported as a collection. That's correct. The debt did go to collections and was subsequently paid off. The balance reported should be $0. If you don't dispute it or if your dispute is unsuccessful then the allowed maximum reporting period is 180 days plus seven years from when the account went past due and was never thereafter brought current again and progressed to getting charged off. The "date opened" which Collect America reports just means when they began to report it. That date doesn't drive the reportable period. _________ * There are only a few locations where state regulations assign a slightly shorter reportable period than do the federal regulations. Unless you live in one of those states, the federal seven years plus 180 days is what you should assume applies to a charged-off credit card debt. Certain other kinds of debts, such as tax liens, or certain public records like judgments or bankruptcy, have different reporting periods.

Welcome to CreditBoards! Invest the time needed to learn a solid grounding in credit basics; it will pay off by giving yourself the best chance to give each dispute its best likelihood to succeed. Read the Newbies' forum start to finish. Start a personal notebook to jot down questions and concepts and terminology you aren't yet familiar with -- and review it from time to time, adding the answers as you encounter them. Find the glossary lists. Search for PsychDoc's seminars; they're excellent coverage training sessions. Don't start taking actions until you have learned for yourself the order in which to take specific actions and the important timeframes to consider, and how to choose the best tactic for each negative element which you hope to improve.

Any company can write software which assigns point values to specific elements in a credit report, and generates a "credit score". However, what is the core reason why people want to know what their score is? It's to find out how creditors would probably rate one's credit history. Thus, using a scoring system which is most likely to be closest to what a lender/creditor would see is the most useful. More lenders use FICO than any competitor's scoring system. FICO is provided by myFICO. For the sake of brevity, all non-FICO scores are nicknamed FAKO (or FACO) meaning fake-o when they're mentioned here on CreditBoards. The reason that there is very little usefulness or value to whatever other "score" number any provider which is not FICO comes up with, is that it is very unlikely that any creditor is ever going to see or use something based upon any of those other scoring systems.

Welcome to CreditBoards. In order to give yourself the best opportunity to achieve improvement in your credit history, I strongly suggest that you start by investing a considerable amount of reading time toward learning the basics. A good grounding can carry you far. There is no instant breakfast packet, nor any microwave entree here; you need to learn for yourself what ingredients to put together. Start with the Newbies' Forum from start to finish. Find the glossary lists. Don't skip threads because you don't think that the title sounds like something which is an exact match for your own issues. That's also true when you break off to read current and recent threads in the Credit Forum. There are nuggets of info buried in many threads, even if the primary topic may not be one of your own negatives. Start a personal notebook. Jot down notes just for yourself whenever you come across topics or terminology which you don't yet understand. Update your notes as you later locate those answers. Use the Search function (find it in the red menu bar below the CreditBoards masthead) to find PsychDoc's seminars. Together with the Newbies' forum, they provide very good material for novices and experienced folks alike. There's no race here -- no timed event with only one winner. If you feel that you don't have reason to take the time to learn what you need to, nor wish to make it a priority at this time, then no one will argue with your decision. It will simply mean that you've decided not to work on credit repair at this time in your life. Maybe at another time it will become more of a priority and interest for you and you'll start your learning cycle then.