kellyoak

About the size of the payments - I set all my rehab stuff up months before I found this site. I wish I'd had all the info when I started but it worked out ok sooooo I can't whine TOO much. I had almost 7k to rehab, counting all the penalties and fines and late fees, etc. The CA (CBE Services, actually not too bad to deal with in my case, though I may have just gotten lucky) reviewed my pay stubs - they said the DOE reviewed them and decided on the payment. Now I believe that may have been a load of poo. Anyway, payments were set at $259/mo, and that is so NOT 1% or thereabouts. So stick to your guns on the "reasonable" and "affordable". On the plus side, once you're done, you're DONE and the payments actually set by the DOE will actually BE reasonable. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's shiny like your new FICO scores will be

I applied a couple of weeks ago and was patiently waiting for my decline letter. WHat I got instead was a card and a 3k CL. My highest limit on store cards is a brand new 1k nordies, the other are in the 100-300 range so I was shocked, to say the least. Pretty decent terms, too, on that card. I have a bunch of recent inquiries and new accounts - got a little happy with the applications, oops... no baddies, no lates, pretty thin file.

"Even if February was the final 9th payment before your student loans were rehabbed, that's only 5 months at best since you had a serious delinquency. None of that is reported? Student loans can trash your report when they go bad, the collection agencies that work them are nasty" Yes, my reports are actually clean. It took less than a month for the defaults to disappear. I was seriously surprised because, as you said, the collection agencies are less than friendly. I pulled my reports on a lark, not really believing it could all be that easy and almost hit the floor when I saw the scores and the ... the.... CLEANness of it. And only a little over 4k in the student loans. I'm paying that down fairly quickly, too. Just got 1k from Nordstroms... I think they're my favorite now. Macys can sit in the sock drawer and I will maybe use it every now and then to buy more socks to cushion it.

I can only add a decline! I got the letter telling me I was declined and which CRA they used. With the approvals I really have no way of knowing which they pulled and I can't accurately add the info until I pull my report again. Is there any other way to find out which a creditor used? I think the database is awesome and would love to add to it, just don't want to put bad info on it!

thank you for the info about the increase and for the kind words. I appreciate it. You're absolutely right.

Can you tell me how you got a CSR on the phone when you called experian? I can't seem to get through to a human!!

Can't think of more understanding people to vent to, sorry. Called Macys for a GLI, I've had the account since Feb with a paltry 100 CL. Right now it's all paid in full and happy and will probably NEVER EVER be used again. The first customer service person I spoke to seemed ok, then transferred me to the auth dept without telling me. He said he needed to check with them and put me on hold. So a woman picks up, I told her I was on hold and she was immediately crabby. SHe said the first rep had TRIED TO EXPLAIN TO me that my request was denied. I finally got out of her that I was declined due to "outside information" and they could send me a letter. She got crabbier and crabbier and I was never rude at any point. I asked if she could tell what that information was, and she testily replied that she couldn't see the information and once I got their letter I could clean up my credit issues. B**** My reports are clean, I just pulled them a few days ago. They gave me the darn card before I was even close to completing rehab on my student loans so what gives?? ETA: is there any way they pull the info on the auth user, also? Because that would certainly explain the problem.

I found the credit karma website and was awed and stunned by the promise of a free credit score... I'm an salamander. Hi, my name is "kellyoak" and I'm an salamander. Creditkarma said my TU score was 608. I freaked out thinking my score had dropped 92 points since last week, and thought I had done it to myself by opening some new store accounts. I DID kinda get a little happy with it. So I pulled myfico and my actual score is 719. Up 19 points, actually. I guess you get what you pay for, right?

ONe other question, and I know this is probably stupid but i can't seem to find the answer anywhere (yeah, I googled my heart out). Does the SOL for a lawsuit apply to the state where the debt was incurred or the state where we currently live? If it applies to the state where the debt was incurred, that would be awesome. If it's the state of residence we are royally screwed.

Thanks to this board, I have successfully rehabbed my student loans, raised my fico scores by A LOT, and am working on raising it further. I have scoured the pages here and I feel like i understand this whole credit thing so much better than I used to. I've got the terms down, etc., and I felt like I could handle whatever I found when I pulled my husband's two fico reports. Holy Sh** was I wrong. His score for eq is 646 and his score for TU is 519. I don't think we could get a loan for a piece of used bubble gum with these reports. The scores are only a portion of the problem! And nothing looks simple. I am TERRIFIED of poking a sleeping bear and winding up sued or garnished or... freaks me out, and now I'm not sure if I can handle this. Really, really not sure. Things I thought would have aged off DIDN'T because a few years ago, stupid stupid, we tried one of those debt consolidation things so the date of last activity is more recent than it would have been if we hadn't been ignorant. I think I should start with having old addresses deleted. There are just a couple of outdated PO Boxes. The only employer listed is one he was with in high school, so I imagine that should come off too. Major question: should I have our street address, which is accurate, replaced with a current PO box to make us a little harder to find when I start poking around in the accounts? Seriously, we've never even attempted to be off the radar so if they had wanted to, we were right here. He's been employed by the same company for over 4 years and the previous one for about the same or longer, we have checking and savings and utilities and everything normal and the only thing they have done is repeatedly call his parent's house in another state asking for him. THey always say he moved years ago and hang up. He's asked them to state that they don't know him or just to not answer any questions but.... dorks. The last time they recieved calls was less than a year ago so I am convinced this is going to get ugly. If I post the information, do you guys think you could help me formulate a game plan? I get this process IN THEORY but putting it into practice will require some expertise and guts that I simply do not have.

Thank you! I'll get going on that!

Nope. Mine were with the CBE group. They were "ok" to deal with. I found out after making the arrangements that I was being screwed over with the payments. 259/month, 1% would have been substantially less. BUT other than that they did what they said they were going to do without fuss.

Hi all, I just finished rehabbing my DOE student loans and my fico scores climbed considerably. I went from a fako experian 541 to a fico 667 and a TU 700!! What's hurting me, according to the myfico site, is high util and low average credit age. My oldest is 12 yrs and my newest was opened in Feb of this year, giving me an average of 5 years. Not so great and I don't see that I can really do much about that part of it at this point. My high util comes from the fees on a subprime card (first premier. not the greatest idea i've ever had). I'm paying those down but right now I show a util of 80%. My TLs are: DOE, paid as agreed, roughly $4500 Macy's, paid as agreed, CL of $100 balance of $50 (will be 0 after next payment) first premier, CL $250, balance of $200, slowly decreasing that one personal loan through first interstate, started at 3k in 2007, now at 1413 and that's it... no lates, no collections, nothing to dispute other than taking off a last name I have NEVER been associated with. On experian I do see an inquiry I didn't authorize but I found a sample letter on this site to have that taken off, I hope. I tried applying for another credit card to get my util down and show more revolving credit but I was denied because I don't have enough revolving credit. Anything else I can work on? We're hoping to apply for a mortgage this year so I would LOVE to push both scores as high as I can! Thank you so much!!

I had one negative TL from DOE, total of a little over 4k. When you have NOOOO other credit, that looks pretty freakin' bad. I still have one TL that reports as "not in repayment" but isn't defaulted. I'm working on that. It's just wierd. What's dinging me now is high util. on a subprime card that I opened earlier this year. Just pulled experian - 667. So another yay. Also a lot to work on... headed over to the credit forum now

update... I am in total shock. Almost speechless. Got my transunion report from myfico and my transunion fico score. Holy cheezus. All my loans are updated post rehab, and so now I have a credit history well over 12 years. and. DRUM ROLL PLEASE I went from a "fako" 541 (on experian) to a fico 700. SEVEN HUNDRED. I haven't ordered the experian yet - I did the trans because we're looking at a loan through our credit union and they pull transunion. So for all you guys out there rehabbing I have this advice: LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE ON THIS BOARD and stick with it.