AllWorkingOut

This might be too late for you but hopefully, it's helpful to anyone who might come across this thread. I was in a car wreck a few weeks ago. I don't have health insurance yet. I TOLD the ambulance drivers that I didn't have health insurance, and I suspect they took me to a nice hospital that would work with me. Just on a phone call, I negotiated the hospital bill for Emergency Room Services down from $1600 to $280!!! I paid it on the phone that minute just to insure I'd get off that cheaply. The ambulance bill was $800. I negotiated them on the phone down to $600. Which I then paid on the spot by debit card, as well. I was surprised, because I had been told you'd just have to pay the ambulance bill with no negotiations possible. The reason I paid right then is to get it taken care of. She did say it would be the original amount if we did payments, but I could have gotten by with $50 a month payments until total was reached. I found out that most medical services will charge you PEANUTS compared to what they would bill insurance (what does this SAY about insurance and how it inflates medical pricing?!). I was in the ER for 6 hours, being treated the whole time since I came in in an ambulance (no waiting). Now, the only bills left are 3 doctor's bills for $25, $45 and $400 (ER doctor, radiologist and another specialist). The hospital billing lady was nice enough to tell me that I can negotiate the doctor's bills WAY down, too. Lesson learned: don't freak out if you get a big hospital bill and you are uninsured or underinsured. They will work with you, they're used to doing it. Honestly, I was expecting to owe around $10,000 and was freaking out about it. To get off with just $1000 is incredible. Just be nice & respectful, and I think it helps to be willing to pay right on the spot if it's so little. The hospital lady was GRATEFUL to me for taking care of it right then. In both cases, they would have given me a few weeks to come up with the lump sum. If I'd made payments, it would have gone up. This is why I wanted to just pay on the spot.

UPDATE: You guys were pretty right about this one, and I appreciate your calming me down. Went into apply to buy a car ANYWAY because I'd planned on it -- the first car I've owned since 2007 (!) Whatever the Credit Karma said, the auto financiers pulled up only a few points drop, rather than the 50. So, I drove off with a newish car, and I'm glad I didn't let that scare stop me from trying. This car will be cheaper than renting all the time. So, yes, Credit Karma was WRONG. I do have baddies that occasionally update for no reason. Most are chargeoffs, so I'm unsure how they can even update an this point. But they are not reporting on Credit Karma. I was in FAIR range instead of suddenly in BAD range. And the car folks said that if I HAD been in any 500 range, it's a red flag and hard to get financing. Two more questions: 1) Should I TRY to a better loan or just thank my lucky stars I got this one? My rate is at 10.2%. In the past, USAA would always give me a better rate, but now they don't like me b/c they charged off a credit card balance I had (though I paid off 2 cars with them previously and made good on one that was about to be repo'd, selling it and paying the loan off in 2007). I still do have bank accounts with them. 2) Technically, the 7 year mark of all my financial misfortune falls this summer. If I never paid some of the old accounts (all are now charged off & out of SOL), will those baddies STILL hang around or can they no longer be re-aged or anything like that? I'm confused, and last summer, when I applied for a mortgage, they said that the fact that these old accounts (long closed, almost 7 years old) were still reporting prevented it from being easy to approve a mortgage. I've been waiting and doing what I can to clean the credit, thanks to CREDIT BOARDS (which is why I could now get approved for a car loan in the first place - thank you, CREDIT BOARDS), and I'm really hoping that come next summer, I can have a fresh start. It has been a very rough time, and light COULD be at the end of the tunnel. Thanks again for your insights and calming me down about this

My credit plummeted by 50 points within a few days according to Credit Karma, and I cannot understand it. Does anyone have a clue on how this can happen? ZERO new activity other than 2 hard pulls in the past month and paid more off a balance. I'm up to 4 hard inquiries this year (2 were much earlier in the year) as we were seeking new lodging, which we've now found. Had to apply through two mortgage lenders. AND I've paid down the balance on my Am Ex so you would think the score would go UP as usage drops. I'm at a LOSS. We were going to buy the first car we've owned in years tomorrow, and I'm wondering if this will torpedo that idea. We've been renting a car for 5 years now, money is looking up, and my score went from fair (640 or so) to POOR (590). If you have any thoughts, I'm begging you to enlighten me. I just cannot believe this. Bad timing, and we're trying to so hard to recover from bad times

browser_2013, nice finger wagging. Most of us are on here because we're learning about credit and have made mistakes, so thanks for pointing out the obvious. Just to add my eperience, USAA was like a robot when I spoke to them about goodwill. My situation is different - was late on an auto loan that they apparently charged off within a couple of months (didn't know 'til checked credit) but I just sold the car and paid off the loan completely within those same few months. Perhaps I should have tried to negotiate pay-for-delete at the time, but they sound so firm about it that I gather they don't play ball. No leeway whatsoever. Be glad it's just a month or two late -- I can't imagine that having any super serious repercussions when you think about the fact that so many of us have gone through far worse and STILL don't have the worse credit & can get approved for things. Thanks for sharing. And to anyone *thinking* about getting in bed with USAA, please know this. As long as it's fine, you're okay. But if you have any problems AT ALL, then be aware they are not your friend.

No! USAA says they don't do good will. Just spoke to them today. They are sending me a form to dispute any wrong reporting, but they said that if the reporting is accurate (and they explained to me how it WAS accurate even though I had paid off the auto loan entirely), then they won't change anything. Lady was like a robot and not nice unlike many of their customer service reps who are sweet. I'd say USAA is a rock wall on this, and if anyone else has a different experience, please do post to offer encouragement. Good luck!

I'm dealing with USAA on a fully paid off car loan that went late for a few months. They are absolutely INTRACTIBLE about good will. Say if they did it for one person, they'd have to do it fo all. Lady I spoke with was like a ROBOT as opposed to nice people in other departments. I'm not sure what to do about them either, but regardless of how it would affect your credit report, I'm unsure if it's a viable option. They are sending me a form to put in writing my request to change how the late payments are reporting, but said that if it's accurate, then they would not change it under any circumstance :-(

Bad.credit, I hope you will update us on this. I have an almost identical situation, and the plaintiff will NOT respond so I can settle it. I hope it turns out well for you. Our SOL in California is TEN YEARS, so you are lucky.

Thanks so much! Just found out that they do have to check hubby's credit in which case $35,000 judgment will show up from 5 years ago. Most of his bad stuff is slated to fall off of his account this summer, happily. I heard, too, that to dispute when trying to buy a house is not good. Mortgage broker said that they could probably make an exception for this old debt since it's coming off, and that would be great. They're trying to work with us, and I've heard that there are always hurdles to the approval process, at least according to our realtor friend.

Thanks! Do keep us posted. I'm getting discouraged but I'll keep your story to inspire me :-)

Yeah, thanks, we're having our doubts. In terms of the actual mortgage, not a stretch, but def the down payment and other costs are adding up and alarming us. My realtor friend said paying a collection debt will reactivate that debt on our credit report when it is falling off the report in June and make it last another 7 years, so that's not ideal. Oh, well, maybe miracles are not always the way.

Thanks very much! The $35,000 judgment is on the person NOT getting the loan, and it hasn't really come up in speaking with mortgage folks, so I think they don't have to check his credit. They said one partner can buy it. The other debt -- the collections one -- is NOT a judgment, just a CA, so I'll see what happens. I posed the Q to our mortgage broker to see. Buying a house seems to incur SO many more costs than even the obvious ones, but I trust if it's mean to be, it'll somehow happen. I'll let y'all know here, too.

I'm going to jump in here. We're ahead of you in that we've just applied. My mother-in-law is giving us $20,000 as a partial down payment. She is liquidating it now and we've already given the 2 bank statements. I wonder if that will mess us up since the money won't be "sourced." Should we tell that? BTW, barbiaux, VERY impressive saving like that!!! Maybe one day or tiny haul from collecting on bottle deposits will pay off. Awesome!! And good luck!!!!

Congrats! Wow, very encouraging, because we are doing the same thing in a similar market and from a history of very poor credit that is now up to about what yours is. You're lucky to have a full-time job. Being self-employed is harder. I thought you had to have extra liquid cash in the bank to get approved, but I guess not. Keep us posted. I'll be following you, and cheering you on as we go through the exact process. Our city has unbelievably low inventory and houses are snatched up before our eyes, too. And our FHA loans go up to $720,000 because of how much it costs to buy in this area. Good luck!

We are in the process of getting pre-qualified as self-employed. Our mortgage broker had us provide 2 years of taxes plus 2 months of bank statements for 2013. If our income had been enough for one year (2011), she said that would have been fine. However, since our income is going up, she needs us to file 2012 to satisfy the income needs. If you have enough income (esp with your fixed part) for 2012 and then the first 2 months of 2013, maybe they would accept just one year's worth and 2 bank statements for this year. They also pull credit of course. For the broker we ended up with (Prospect Mortgage), you fill out an on-line form that also asks for how much cash you have on hand and other assets. My real estate buddy told me you need to have the down payment plus at least 3 - 6 months of mortgage payments in your bank. We had several friends recommend mortgage brokers to us, and none of them called us back :-) So, when we made the offer on a house we want, the realtor suggested his, and when we spoke to her, she was super nice and responsive. She spent an HOUR on the phone with me today just getting ducks in a row for pre-approval and giving advice. I would say ask around for references or maybe look on yelp.com -- put in your zip code and key words: "mortgage" and look for good reviews. For us, most important is responsiveness, since we need someone who will not drag this process out and not take a week to get back to us. Good luck!

Yeah, your broker was WRONG. Just had my credit checked this weekend for a mortgage pre-approval, and guess what? My Credit Karma and MyFico pinged me immediately that I got a hard pull. This same mortgage broker informed me that she is doing the best to ensure our pre-approval sets us up to final loan approval and we are having to jump through hoop (self-employed with some bad credit dings a few years ago) just to satisfy that. She also said that it would be BAD if we put down 3% when is required to submit an offer, and then got denied after pre-approval because we would forfeit the deposit. Kinda' scary. I'm a bit worried. This does seem different than those pre-approval credit letters you get in the mail. Good luck!