QUOTE(Dermgirl @ Aug 22 2007, 10:21 PM)
Super story,
How did you do it??? I am post bk 3 years, and my fico is in mid 500 i have re-established my credit, merrick bank, target, juinper, usairways, pd off car loan americredit, never a minute late on any of them!!!!! I pay more than the minimum and keep low balances. Please share...
Many thanks
rachel
Well... the first thing I did was read as much as I could on this board. There is almost too much information on this board and not all of it will apply to your specific case. Ingest what you can, process what you need, and then just chip away.
My main piece of advise is persistence & patience. You may have to talk to 100 people at a particular company to get your point across and be heard... here are a few examples...
1. I had 3 Verizon baddies on each of my reports that would not budge. I called millions of times, sent dozens of letters, even received some email responses from some higher ups within Verizon, but they all said the same thing "no we can't remove". I finally got the email address of the president or vice president of Verizon (can't remember) and he of course got everything removed for me. Thanks to this board, I got the email address...
2. I had an old & closed Bloomie's, card in good standing. I may have called 10-15 times to get it re-opened, everyone I spoke with said no it can't be done, the account is too old to be re-opened. Well magically, the 16th person I called was able to open it without a problem...
3. Same goes for disputing, you may have to dispute an item 15 times before it gets removed or 15 different ways... hand written letter, typed letter, fax, email, electronic, phone call... you have to be persistent.
4. I had a Sprint charge off that went to collections... the account was so old that Sprint didn't even have the account number any longer. I called Sprint dozens of times wanting to pay it in full because it just wouldn't budge from my reports, they kept saying no, you have to pay the collection agency that it was sold to. For carious reasons, I didn't want to pay the collection agency. I finally got all the account info. from the collection agency, then through doing a search on this board I was able to get some special number for a Sprint Finance Department... they gladly took my payment. I then called the collection agency a few weeks later, played dumb and asked them why are they trying to collect a debt that was paid directly to Sprint? Sure enough, the collection was removed for all 3 of my reports...
Be persistent & patient, be creative, DEFINITELY be nice to the person on the other end of the phone, being nice will get you a LONG way...
My breakthrough came 1 day when I decided to create a spreadsheet so I can better keep up with my cards... I just called all my creditors to get basic account info such as APR, limit, balance... I was nice to all of them, I found that most account rep's know when and how much they can give you as far as a credit line increase... I just played dumb and asked all of them "when exactly is my credit limit increased and is it done automatically or do I have to request it"? Just by their responses with all of them to that question, I was able to basically double my credit lines with most of my cards... sometimes they tell you what they can give you and anything more will require a pull...
A BIG CONGRATS TO YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!