earnestbunbury

Cleaning up your credit report doesn't take nearly as long as you'd think. Ours were in the low 500's, but are now over 700. When I tried to get a mortgage in the past the mortgage brokers would always say- "There's a couple of things on your reports from years passed, you'll need to send them a check and we'll be OK." Bottom line- I still think that the powers that be are working on ways to loosen up credit standards for home buying so they can make money. All we can do now is wait, and try every now and then to see if we can get one. A local builder where I live said that times were so bad for home builders that it was far better and cheaper to build a house than to buy one, and that it was foolish to buy a house that was already built. Thinking of going that route. Using cash to buy a piece of land; after that seeing how much it will cost to build the frame and roof, windows, etc. so I can move on to the next steps, like electrical, wallboards, kitchen, etc. Between the markup for builders and the money you pay to the banks in mortgage payments it might be the way to go. He told me that a lot of contractors will hire themselves out- looking over the work that's done by guys you hire. Builders are a little infamous for not showing up or doing shoddy work if you don't keep an eye on them. It's a good idea to have a pro go over every step making sure they do it right. Of course, if they loosen standards I'll probably just ignore my own good advice and take the first one that's offered me.

I'm interested too. I sent certified letters to CRA's telling them that the addresses they had for me were incorrect and to remove them. They just didn't. What would the next step be? Thanks.

Wow. These graphs are amazing. it's like he's in some weird netherworld of credit knowledge.

So, you are saying up front that you think the relationship between credit cards and the public they prey on is something YOU don't have to worry about, and for no one to try and argue with you, because you are morally superior to us, as you would never think of not paying a debt you owe, unlike the rest of us greedy immoral thieves. Well, let me give you a short run down of how this country I'm in works (The United States of America). Our entire system of government is based on bribery; that is, I give a congressman money and he votes the way I want him to. This is very good for business, especially banking and credit card companies. As ralph Nader has been saying for years, any interest rate over 5% is basically usury. Did we make the decision to accept the offers? Yes. Do we share in the blame when things go south and we can't pay back? Yes. Does this mean that the lenders are not predators who are trying to perpetuate a system where everyone is constantly in debt up to their eyeballs while they become rich beyond a normal humans wildest dreams at the expense of the impulses that every human has? NO. It's nice to sit back and take the moral high ground with your 'I'm SO much better than you are- but here's my question...', but in the real world people are preyed upon but money lenders with the help of bribed officials in government. The fact is, there is no one looking out for us, with the rare exception of web sites like these and a few honest politicians (!). Most of us on here have learned the hard way what being taken advantage of by greedy predatory lending practices can do to a citizen of the US. Boy, did we learn the hard way! But, if you're like me you see the banks that are destroying the US, and a good part of the rest of the world, as the enemy. I enjoy making life miserable for the credit rating agencies. I mean, think about it... what if someone hired a private investigator to look into your life- find out things you might not want to broadcast to the world and then SELL that personal information to anyone? Wouldn't you be angry? Want to sue? But you can't. Because the companies that need that information have bribed- oops, I mean 'given campaign contributions' to congressmen to say it's OK for someone to find out information about you and to sell THE MOST EMBARASING things (a bill that wasn't paid, a divorce, etc.) to anyone that wanted to pay. So rather than say how much better you are a person than us and that we should respond elsewhere to other people's questions rather than yours, why don't YOU (who have never been in debt and have no trouble paying back any debt you might have gotten- I'm sure you just came upon this site by accident and decided to post in your spare time), move on to the 'IhavenotroublewithdebtbecauseI'mveryresponsibleandmorallysuperiorcreditboards.com' site and you can all post about how the system isn't gamed to screwing over the average working man, while elected officials and the media suck people dry while income inequality is at record high levels not seen since before the great depression? I try to ignore the inherent preaching of most of the responses I get from questions, because I know that's how people are- they have aggression to get out, and, even if their answers are helpful they throw in a little dig or two at whatever question you ask or response you give, but really, your ridiculous 'Why are people not as good as me- just a question?' post deserves not to be ignored. Believe me, it's a battle against us and the bankers and corrupt politicians. Creditboards is one of the few weapons we have at our disposal. If the banks have to drink a teaspoon of what we've been forced to drink gallons of our whole lives- well that makes me happy. Mindless salamander.

Update: Off one of my credit reports. I wrote a letter explaining what's what and it came off. EQ and Experian are next.

If I were you I'd get everything you possibly could to clean up your credit and play the waiting game. This wait might not be as long as everyone thinks. This is just me opinion, not fact, but I think lenders are desperate to sell houses and the current 'not excepting ANYONE for a mortgage' BS is something the 1% are working on. If they rig the rules a bit later on to make it easier to get a house (not to the ridiculous 'sign here and I'll give you a house' levels of 2007) you'll want to be all ready with a good credit rating. As I said, just an opinion, but the rich want to sell houses and they always seem to win. There's already talk of a new credit rating system that will ignore some of the bad stuff on your report for your score- others would know more about that on here. I talked to a mortgage broker and he said the way they're talking it seems like they might give people a pass if they took a loss on a second home, since everyone had a second home back then, it seems. He basically told me they ignore the house situations and concentrate on the credit other than the defaults. Again, speculation, but my credit is clean now and I'm just waiting for lending rules to loosen up.

There are lawyers that say they can do it for $2000-5000 dollars. I'm trying to get a short sale off and have heard good and bad things about this. The 'bad' things seem to be written as propaganda pieces, like the articles you read everywhere that your credit can't be 'fixed', which is, of course, a lie. Keep us posted on what you find out.

A story told a million times over- I got a second house when they were there for the asking. One I bought using my VA loan. The house went into a short sale, but the VA paid the mortgage company the difference, so the lender was paid in full. My problem now is how to get it off my credit reports as a short sale. Does anyone have a strategy? How would you do it? Is there any part of the FDCPA, etc. that mentions any law or statute I could mention or anything? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

They never mentioned any of that. She said that if I used the card it would just stop working and be declined once I reached more than $1000.00, although I was only going to spend $30.00 tops. How people figured out to defraud a card that won't work once the credit limit is reached is beyond me, but crooks are far smarter than even scientists when it comes to ripping people off. If they would only use their powers for good....

The exact same thing happened to me. I gave them a check for 10K for a secured credit card. The loan person at the bank said they would do a soft pull, since there was no risk to them. I waited for the secured card to come in the mail but instead got a letter saying I didn't make enough income for a credit card. A SECURED credit card! With NO risk to them. Leave it to a big multinational banking giant to turn away free money. I went to my credit union directly after and they gave me a secured card. After I explained what happened with Wells Fargo she just said she wouldn't do any credit pull. Stick with credit unions and away from the big banks that are ruining this country.

They used to be at least good for telling me when my cards reported to the credit agencies, but I don't even see that option anymore. The 'scores' they give you are utter nonsense. They have my EQ score as 625 but I paid EQ and they said my score was 710. That means they don't even use the information from the company they're working with.

A story told a million times over- I got a second house when they were there for the asking. One I bought using my VA loan. The house went into a short sale, but the VA paid the mortgage company the difference, so the lender was paid in full. My problem now is how to get it off my credit reports as a short sale. Does anyone have a strategy? How would you do it? Is there any part of the FDCPA, etc. that mentions any law or statute I could mention or anything? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

So, just to get things clear: I have been rebuilding my credit. I've opened three secured cards and have two credit cards. According to what I've read here I should use almost nothing in utilization during the month (I buy one small thing on Amazon.com) and pay everything off except for $2.00 on one of the cards. I pay that off when I get my bill. then I switch to a different card the next month and do the same thing. Then I just wait until the charge-offs disappear or are lessened as time goes by. Anything else I should be doing? Thanks.

I just took a look at my three credit reports. Transunion and Equifax report charge-offs as 30 days late, then 60, 90, 130, then end with 150 and a 'charge-off'. Experian, however, lists 150+ late over and over again for up to a year before putting a black 'X' next to the listing. I know the listing comes off after seven years, but from what date? Is there something in writing somewhere that the start of the seven years starts from the 150+ late date? When I write to Experian I want to be able to recite chapter and verse from any law and ask them why on some of my accounts the 'black X' starts on the 150+ date and others start months later. I know the information on some of these accounts are the same as they are from Equifax and Transunion, but visually it sends a message from Experian with all these black marks showing (presumably) month after month for the next seven years. I'm not even sure if someone actually looks at them and sees the black X's, but still. Anyway, the main thing I need is a quote from something legal saying what the official date of the seven years starts. Is it the date it was charged off? The standard 150 days? Any help would be appreciated.