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Hello everyone, I lost my job about 4 years ago so I decided to go back to school and take on freelance work in order to build on my skills. Within a year of being laid off, I couldn't keep up with the minimum payments. Most of my credit cards had unemployment insurance and although I called within a month of being laid off the insurance never kicked in. I was so nervous about my situation that I completely withdrew, stopped opening the bills and allowed all 5 of my credit cards to go to collection agencies and my student loans to default. BAD! VERY BAD! I've been working for the past year and ready to pick up the pieces. Immediately after getting a job I called the Students Loans and set up payment arrangements. I have 1 sallie mae private loan and a couple of joint government SL. I'm paying ridiculous fees on them but I will get into that later. I'm writing this post because I'm ready to clean up the mess and I want your help/experience as I go through the process. Here is my plan for this month: - Pull all three credit reports (paid) - - Dispute Debt Validity with CA (they are all reporting as closed on report) - Ask CB to delete inaccurate information (multiple agencies for one card) Next: - Negotiate pay out with CA for deletion HELP - QUESTIONS Where do you recommend I get my paid Transunion and Equifax credit reports from? (I use Experian credit monitoring service) A long time ago I place a fraud-alert on my Equifax report and they have blocked me from getting and online report ever since. Anyone else experience this?