greenpotatochips

Another Credit Scum preapproval I threw in the trash. Oh yeah, this was yesterday. I have no idea what I'm going to get today. Lol.

I went back and saw that. Good tip on the PO Box. That's why a lot of the steps here may seem straightforward, but there's a bit more to it than people would suggest. Not only found some in my area, but a company that also offers a private mailbox service where I can get another physical street address too. Will that also possibly work? Then, as you said, I'll go back, update all my current CC accounts with this new information and go from there. I really wanted to dispute in writing this time for the addresses instead of calling them, though at least TU didn't put up such a fight when I went that route. With LN, I was gonna call them up again today and double check to see if they received my opt out request or not.

Yeah. I have Innovis, ARS, and CoreLogic frozen as well as with LN. I haven't sent any letters myself, and good point about the major bureaus as well for freezes (EQ, TU, and EX). I was able to find the form online to opt out of LN as well today. Sagestream I faxed a request to have that frozen as well, haven't gotten anything in the mail yet and when i've called them, their lines were always busy. Glad that it might still be worth a try to go forward with the letters if people here have had success disputing and getting these off despite having the address on there, since I'm not moving yet. But at the same time, I didn't wanna risk having the BK and derogs permanently fused to my reports. It's a good thing the CRAs never got the dispute letters this company I was using at first sent. Haha. I was still worried about Experian not removing my old address, but that's not where the BK was tied to.

C O N G R A T S !

When you have nothing else to work with at the beginning, I can understand that. I got some store cards myself as part of my rebuild but as soon as I get to where I wanna be with my credit, they are going to get nuked. You're moving onto bigger and better cards, so have at it. As long as these are positive accounts, they should continue to be on your reports either way for 10 years and not affect your AAoA.

That's what I thought. I still live at the address where I've had the BK, so I knew for a fact that I couldn't get the BKs off for now. EX was giving me a hard time with removing a previous address through the phone. I still wanted to work on any derogatory IIB accounts though, but if they're just gonna come back as verified, might as well save that part for later. I froze LN, but didn't know about the opt out part. Hmmmm. Glad I read this thread.

Bump. I was successful with disputing my old addresses all via phone through Transunion. They didn't even bat an eye or care when I made mine. Equifax I was able to also dispute via the phone as well using the exact same script that was shown here, calling in about potential fraud and inaccurate addresses, even trying the whole this address is associated with a family member type stuff. Experian was much tougher though. The lady I talked to was nice, and she was able to get rid of most of the old addresses, except the one where she was saying that "that's what I asked you at the beginning about where you've lived if you haven't been at your current address for over two years." She gave me a little bit of an attitude there and would only remove inaccurate versions of that address, etc. Not sure what to do now besides waiting a few more weeks and calling again. I might go ahead and send in a written request to take care of that part, but start with my other disputes on TU and EX once I get confirmation those addresses are gone. I called Experian through their dispute phone number instead of their usual number that you can find on Google. Does this also work when removing addresses from LexisNexis? I know I've already had them frozen when I called a few weeks ago to request that freeze.

My EX fell by a dozen or so points and the Experian Boost thing for BB&T doesn't even work anymore, but at least I got this email lol.

I know what it's like to get paid once in the whole month. Since starting this current job I have where I'm a contractor, that's how it's been. Really nice too, but you have to really plan out your expenses for that month and make sure you don't blow all that money in the first week or so. It felt so nice to have a decent emergency fund again and to really have more control than ever where my money's going. It's too bad many of those clowns over there won't ever be able to get this.

I can empathize with where you're coming from, OP. I too made plenty of financial mistakes like this in my early 20s and had to learn the hard way. But I agree with others here. Your debt compared to many isn't nearly so bad, and you still have some time and room to work with your creditors to take care of it. Looking back, I would have tried to have settled more with certain lenders. Bankruptcy is more of a last resort option when you've tried everything else under the sun and are still having issues. Nothing wrong with that, but if you can get all this straightened out, clean up your reports, work on developing a rainy day fund for yourself, and hopefully be able to boost your income in the long run, you'll be fine. You might want to look into Mint or Everydollar apps if you need help establishing a budget for yourself and seeing where you're spending each month. Regardless of whatever your income is now, if you can learn how to stick to a budget now, you will save so much in the long run. If I were you, I wouldn't focus so much on how ugly the reports look like now. Just get your Cap1 stuff fixed, getting those high interest cards paid off ASAP, and adding more positive tradelines, even if it means going with some secured cards or something to help would be the main priority and working on that for the next several months, which will teach you all about utilization and how much of an effect that can have on your reports, and really teach you that paying in full is the way to go. That's going to elevate your score substantially in just a few months no matter how many derogs you have on the report now, since some of these are already several years old going by your post. Get rid of the subprime turds like First Premier and Credit Scum after you're done paying them off too. They're a blight on anyone's reports. Lastly, use this as a chance to develop even better habits with credit.

You can always call some of these lenders up too and explain what you're trying to do and how you want to work towards paying off these high balances. Sometimes they have plans you can take advantage of and other ways to make it even easier at chipping away at all these cards that you owe. Focus on the primes first like Chase and Amex so you can remain in good standing with them. For the store cards, once your utilization is lower, you might want to consolidate that debt as well given how high those APRs could be. When you're out of debt, never forget about this experience. Use it as an opportunity to use credit responsibly and to PIF as much as possible. There are debt management programs out there as well where you list all these cards you have and you get them all under one payment, but depending on who you go with, it can still be on the expensive side to have that huge monthly payment upfront.

That's interesting. What's the specific reason you want to keep your limit there low? If you're not having any issues with utilization (especially if you already PIF), I can understand. Just curious as to where you're coming from, OP.

Most of these people learn the hard way. What's the point in trying to convince them otherwise then? Pride coming before the fall.

If you use CreditCheckTotal / Experian, you just have to pay $1 for the free trial, and you'll not only get your EX FICO, but the other two bureaus as well. It's very easy to cancel before the trial is up.

If you're already in prime land, you probably won't have as much use for Synchrony at that point anyway. Don't make the mistake of going crazy adding all these new accounts like that. Which card was this? Maybe there are some better ones you can get from other lenders that might fit your needs.