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Did I do good with that? So, for the last month or so, I've been getting emails from a company called January.. yes, like January Jones. That's the name of the company, first month in the year January. I was confused because they said they were collecting for Merrick. I had set up a payment plan with Merrick that closed my account sometime over the summer. Life ensued, and I was not able to pay Merrick again. Which brings me to the leading statement. I called Merrick after trying to log in on their site at the number they gave me. So now it's not just closed, it is charged off. This must have happened in the past month or so. So, if January is a debt collector.. I haven't done this in a very long time. I know it means I no longer need to pay them the full balance, since they bought my account for pennies on the dollar. And while I don't know how many pennies on the dollar, I am most inclined to follow the advice of offering them 20% of the balance and see their counter or if they accept. I have not responded to their e-mails. So, I am asking.. what is the best way to attack this? They do say they are "collecting for Merrick" and Merrick just told me my account is charged off. So, since the cheapest route to getting rid of them wins the day.. what should I next do? This is all recent in the last month or two and I am rusty. Can't remember the last time I had to deal with a collection agency. After this I have just one more to do and I'm looking good...

Hi everyone, I'm just starting to fix my credit and could use some guidance on what steps to take first. I have 3 CC accounts paid CO. I have all three of my paper credit reports in hand, but I’m unsure where to begin. I haven’t done any disputes yet—no address clean-up, no DOFD, DV, and I haven’t attempted the 1-2 Punch method or anything like that. I've found many beginner guides and newbie index posts here, but most of them seem pretty outdated, and I want to make sure I’m following a current and effective plan. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I’d appreciate a step-by-step or suggestions on what to prioritize—whether it's addressing clean-up, investigating DOFDs, disputing, etc. Thanks in advance for any help!

While attempting to check my annual report, I could not view any of the 3 online. Equifax responded by sending a message that requests my government issued ID and that the issue was my address isn't what they have in their records for me. I had disclosed this info during my time filling out the application. One of the others rejected claiming it took to long, which could not have been more than maybe all of 3 mins. Not to mention it was expected of me to know my zip with the additional four added numbers. The ones that only come show up on some mail and not all. Ex: 00000-0000 I had to use an external site ..

Hi all, I've successfully rebuilt myself to a high 700s score and 11% utilization with less to be reported soon. I have no negatives and no individual card with more than a 20% balance as I pay off my remaining debt. I have an AAoA of 8+ years. My spouse has a clean report but high utilization that is tanking his score (no negatives JUST utilization). How much will it help to have him as an AU on my accounts? I'm trying to help raise his score and we'll be tackling his debt using my credit as soon as I'm PIF

So at the end of 2020 I purchased a home. My old apartment complex charge me for a year (2021) after I moved out when my lease is up. They lost track of my lease when they were changing over the apartment to another owner. I called the complex and talked to a manager and explained the situation and they said they would get on it. It’s been over two years and it’s still on my credit report. It’s lowered my credit down 40 points and I don’t know what to do. Is this even legal

there's a eviction balance on my credit report, I'm trying to get it removed with a "pay for delete" letter to the original creditror. Does anyone here have any templete letters that can be helpful? Thank you.

Hello, Posted this on a different site and got zero feedback. Hopefully ya'll can offer some insight. I currently have 12 credit card accounts that have either been closed by the creditor and are currently in house in their collections department or charged off. Total balance on all accounts: $80K. Credit Card Companies they're from: Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Discover, and USAA. Charged off accounts are USAA (2), Chase (1), Citi (2), Bank of America (1), Wells Fargo (1). Closed In Collection accounts are Discover (1) which is in a repayment arrangement with a 1% interest rate. And Citi (2 more) that are closed in collection without a payment arrangement set yet. For the charge offs, I've called all of them and basically was told settlement is the only option other than paying the full balance due on the account. They said they will not delete or modify the charge off on my credit reports even if I were to pay the full balance owed on the account. My biggest concern is that my credit score has nose dived from the 700s to about 400 over the last year because of my financial situation and having to let these all go delinquent. Prior to a year ago, never missed a payment in my credit history (12 year history). I am planning on offering each of the charge offs 20% of the balance owed to settle the debts. From my understanding, the notation on credit reports will say Charge Off-Settled-Paid. For the non-charge off accounts, what should I do? For the Discover collection account, should I just end that arrangement and request a settlement of that balance? They aren't charge offs thankfully but paying the full balances won't accomplish anything to salvage my credit at this point. I'm planning on offering 20% of the balances for these account as well. Is there anything specific I should know before making my offer to these companies to best set me up for "success"? I feel like I'm already at the point of no return for credit score death. 7 charge offs is brutal. I want to make the decisions that will best have my score recover fastest. Any feedback appreciated.

There is a credit repair company that is getting inquiries for "business" credit cards removed because it's not permissable purpose to pull personal credit for what the banks are touting as a business card. This is a legitimate credit repair company, and they claim anyone can do it. Their parent company that aquires business credit for businesses even offer a do it yourself guide if you hire them. Is there any case law on this? Can you shed any light? It makes sense, but why haven't I heard of this before? A lawyer also told me he heard of it and it had promise.

Anyone want to place bets?????????? I have two accounts that are scheduled to stay on file till 02/24. Will they fall off on 02-01-2024? Or just an unspecified date within the Month of February Or actually fall off on 03-01-2024? I am not disputing them, I am just trying to figure out how the major Credit Reporting Agencies work and periods for scheduled deletion. I will follow up in this thread and let the board know as soon as I know. Any thoughts or guesses?

Hi, In 2016, I had let three Amex Account go to CO. One of them I ended up paying. In 2020, I then got myself an Amex AU just to see if I was on some kind of restriction. The AU account stayed on until March of 2023 when Amex terminated the AU status. My question now is should I call CRA to remove the AU line. Does it really help my FICO at this point? It is no longer updating.

Hello Everyone, I will get straight to the point, due to some mistakes I made years ago my credit score is very low. My FICO SCORE 8 is 482 on Experian. I've started an online business that's making me money and as of recent I need a new Payment Processor. Without one I cannot do business online. The problem is my credit score is currently holding me back from acquiring one. My total debt is $67,380, I am thinking about buying a seasoned tradeline, with a 20K+ credit limit or higher with an age of 4+ years to offset my utilization and bring my credit score up. This will cost me about $570, my credit score needs to be a minimum of 500 to get a payment processing account, I'm only doing this because time is not on my side, and e-commerce is how I make my living, and take care of my family. Any opinions, advice, or experience you would like to share? Thank you!

I am dealing with CCS for an account from Comcast. During the early 2021, I was stuck overseas due to fligh ops suspension. CCS was assigned this debt on June 7, 2021. CCS claimed they mailed me two letter but I could not find any at home when I came back on June 29th, 2021. As a backgrop of this, the final bill was disputed and that is why I could not pay before leaving in December of 2020. Xfinity restricted my access to the account overseas and I could not log in. I was planing on returning in Feb but due to the second covid surge, I could not fly until June 29. When I returned, I contacted Comcast about the dispute. It was never resolved. Two Questins, Can Comcast place a disputed final bill with a collection agency without resolving it? Fact that I was overseas, does simply mailing a collection letter to my residence fulfils CCS's legal obligation under the law?

Well. Monday, August 14th, 2023. Perhaps it time to start a running credit thread. Probably infrequent updates.. thought this would be a good place to start it: My FICO score (not a FAKO. This is a FICO score, as per a credit denial letter from Chase for Amazon.com Visa Signature) is 602 calculated as of 8/9/2023.

So I recently posted a rough plan of my credit building journey into the near future, and one thing stood out to me after I looked closer. Self is not as good an option as it initially seems. For context, Self Financial is a credit rebuilding/building company that offers certificate of deposit loan options (Credit Builder Loans) for those with low or no credit. These 'loans' are a certificate of deposit that they open via a bank they are partnered with, and that has an interest rate, a certificate of deposit rate, and no initial payout. It is in a way a savings account that builds your overall credit age, on time payment history, and presumably account variety/credit mix (a factor that counts for 10% of the FICO score.) So, where I went wrong: I was initially going on the belief that the Credit Builder account offered by Self had minimal/low fees, but after a much closer look (and an updated 'fees' page on their website that possibly did not exist when I originally signed up) I've hit a hard right on that opinion. Self fees are actually quite hard-hitting, and their interest is not something to be taken lightly. --- When I first opened an account with them in December of 2022, they seemed to only offer 1 year 'loans.' This has since changed to 2 years, and in a lot of ways, this hinders your credit building journey more than it helps. My initial account was 150/month for 12 months, or 1,800 at term end. Each account requires a fee of $9 to open, this is a nonrefundable (as far as I see) administration fee. On paying off your first 'loan,' the next Credit Builder account opened will only require a $5 administration fee. the APRs may be slightly off, I am just calculating the results as a simple APR instead of a compounding APR also i m bad at ze maths so if u can plz explain where i go wrong I paid off the account in 6 months. In terms of credit score, I ended up netting myself 6 months of account age (that disappears when I pay off the loan) and 6 on time payments In the end, I rolled 1200 over to my Self Secured credit card (which has a heavy $25 annual fee with no cash back) and received a 463.80 payout, with 0.80 worth of interest accumulated in the certificate of deposit (this may be a bit off due to paying the loan off early, or by rolling the majority of my funds into the secured card.) Calculating the certificate of deposit rate on my (closed/paid off) previous account turns into a mess, as I had varying amounts in the actual credit builder account and most of it rolled into the Self Secured card, netting zero interest. But estimating on the 463 being in the account for one month to 2 months, the APR of the certificate of deposit appears to be around 1.03% (if the 463 was in there for 2 months) or 2.07% (if the 463 was in there for one month.) This translates to (600-463=137) $137 worth of fees incurred in 6 months of payment, not including the admin fee of $9. This totals a .0761_ of principal interest charge incurred, or an effective 7.61% APR. Paying the loan off in 6 months decreased what can be extrapolated as the original APR, which would be a .152_ or 15.2% APR. Removing the certificate of deposit interest lowers this net loss by a very negligible amount, at least if you are rolling your payments over into their secured credit card offer. But even so, if you are holding the cash solely in the account, and paying for the Credit Builder on schedule, your interest incurred (and thus fees that you cannot get back) is only a 1-2% dampener on the 15% APR. But this is an old, and quite possibly non-standard Credit Builder offer now. As the company expanded, they turned to 24 month loans to keep people paying longer (and to be fair, growing their credit history and on time payments.) --- The current stats on the fees page of the Self website are as follows: they are all at 2 year terms they all have a admin fee of $9 the various choices of monthly payments are $25, $35, $48, $150 the total payments over the term are $600, $840, $1152, $3600 the total payouts you receive at term end are $520, $724, $992, $3076 ~ this can and will change with both the amount of money you have paid in, and how many months a given sum of money remained in it (aka, was not transferred to fund their optional Self Secured credit card) the total charges (in terms of interest incurred over the course of the loan) are $89, $125, $169, $533 the total charges (notwithstanding the admin fee) are $80, $116, $160, $524 this translates to (ratio of fees w/o admin to total payments; ratio divided by months) a simple APR/monthly APR of 13.3%/1.1%, 13.8%/1.15%, 13.8%/1.15%, 14.55%/1.21% above could actually be half, i seem to have calculated the 2 year term limit as one year - so the APR would be 6.615%/0.55%, 6.65%/0.575%, 6.65%/0.575%, 7.27%/0.605% this part confuses me. the website adds an interest rate and APR for each loan, they are as follows; 14.14/15.92, 14.7/15.97, 14.79/15.72, 15.58/15.88 the difference between the two amounts to; 1.78, 1.27, 0.93, 0.3 this is not correlative to the calculated simple APR shown by the fee to payout ratio shown in the previous part, so idk how it relates to the charges In the end, this technically means you should be prepared to lose 13.3% to 14.55% of your total loan to fees. A benefit of the Credit Builder loan is the ability to self-fund a secured credit card. At 3 months of on-time payments to your Credit Builder loan and at least $100 of payment on your loan, you are offered the chance to roll over the principal of the loan towards funding the secured card. These rolled over funds will now be separate from the loan, not incurring and certificate of deposit growth, but will still count as a paid portion of your loan. So for example, you paid 450 on the 150/month loan. You will be shown as having paid 450, but will only have (450-100=350) 350 still earning the certificate of deposit interest on your loan. The fee to open the card is $25, or the first annual fee. The minimum card limit is $125, or $100 of principal and a $25 fee that (i think? based on experience) is automatically charged to the card on opening. To be eligible for the Secured card, Have an active Credit Builder Account for at least 3 months and have made at least 3 monthly payments on time Have reached at least $100 savings progress in your Credit Builder Account (after interest and fees) Have your Credit Builder Account in good standing A permanent US residency or citizenship with a Social Security Number Share your income and expenses Note: meeting these minimum requirements is not a guarantee that you will be offered the credit card. However, once offered, you have a zero chance of rejection, as you meet the criteria for the card. --- If all this hassle and fees are worth the extra credit history, payments recorded, and the chance to fund a secured credit card to $3,000 with zero chance of a rejection, go for it. Otherwise, it would be wise to stay away. Since this realization of the actual numbers, I would not at all recommend opening an account with Self without putting in a lot more thought and attention. ~sunni if you find something incorrect, please do correct me.

Hello there I am new to this board, I have been going around the forum but I am kind of lost, there is just too many information, it would be great if you could direct me to forums that can help me. And bear with me this is all very new to me. I have 2 collections from rental properties that have been on my account for 2 years and they are greatly affecting my credit (Speaking 18k). Anyhow a couple of months ago I contacted the debt collectors (Big mistake I realize that now 🤧) I wanted to pay the debts off because I cant get a credit card or rent an apartment. But they wouldnt negotiate with me on a good number so I didnt proceed with paying. Anyhow, after that I disputed the collections with the 3 credit bureaus, TransUnion and Experian removed the collection but not Equifax they were able to verify. On one of the collections I have a comment "account previously in dispute – now resolved by data furnisher" I dont quite get that part. Anyways, heres the catch I didnt have a social security number back when these collections where created (I was international) I just got mine a year ago, so I think that should be used against them? How can I remove these collections -- please help! And since I contacted them recently does that mean I wont be able to dispute the collections? Thank you!

I'm just starting my new business. Just officially became registered LLC with state of FL in May 2023. I tried to open a Business Checking acct. with a local Credit Union - Suncoast Credit Union, but was denied because of low credit score on my personal side. They pulled from Experian and my score was a 534. I believe this was a Soft-Pull because I haven't seen any inquiries come up on my credit reports, as of yet. Is there no way to open bank accounts for business without personal credit? I'm currently in the process of disputes on my credit report, but it takes time. Any advice would be great.

I had a Capital One credit card that was charged-off in 2019. The debt hasn't been sold. They haven't contacted me about it. I've called several times to see if i can pay it but they said i can't. It's stopping me from getting new credit and i'm not sure what to do about it. Has anyone here ever experienced something like? Advice needed. Thanks

Hello, wondering if you can help or offer any suggestions. Long story made shorter, I took a loan from my 401K to pay college tuition for my daughter. The retirement company changed hands with my employer. as a result, the terms of the loan changed....my payments increased and was no longer to be taken out of my paycheck. I received a letter from the IRS saying the funds are now considered a withdrawal. I have not called the IRS about this yet. Like the Original poster, I was going to call to solicit help from someone more knowledgeable to see if there are any options here. thanks in advance.

Someone please help me I am trying to get an eviction off of my credit report. It is the only thing I have aside from two medical under $200. My eviction collection is 1500. I have Navy Federal and I am now working really can use a credit card, but wanting to wait a few months my score is 524.?

Pulling EX report, I see many old addresses, some linked to 5 year old (Charge Offs) COs. Strategy is to: 1. establish a new mailing address in my Experian credit profile. (already done) 2. freeze all reporting in: Lexis Nexis: https://www.lexisnexis.com/privacy/fo... Innovis: https://www.innovis.com/securityFreez... SageStream: https://www.sagestreamllc.com/securit... ARS: https://www.ars-consumeroffice.com/se... Then, I go back to EX and dispute - attempt delete all old addresses by having issued a freeze on all the aforementioned credit bureaus. -- CB cannot cross reference COs 3. Dispute accuracy of COs, 4. Dispute the 1 collection. Wait 60 days, rinse and repeat steps #3 and #4

Is it possible to remove late payments?

How, you ask? Simple - you just can't win. Look at the two items I have here from Credit Karma (yeah, I know - FAKO not FICO, but the principle remains the same). Same date....... Same amount of change in total Credit Card debt Same direction in the amount of debt - down. Same Credit Card Company involved in the change. Same change in number of Credit Core points What's different? One (EFX) went UP six points, and one (TU) went DOWN six points. It's not the number of points that I am questioning, it is the fact that the exact same documented change cause one score to h=go up, nd another to go down, and both by the exact same number of points. You have better odds in a Casino, and a crooked one at that. .

Why Pay for someone to help you build your credit with this tool its very easy and will help you build credit back up in no time!

I'm 3 for 3 on firm no's. I don't know what else to do. All CEOs, or their staff, replied saying they are required to report accurate information. As far as I'm aware that is true, but technically, they can choose whether or not to report the account at all? Is it worth responding and telling them that, or am I just wasting my time? The worst ones are paid charge offs from 2017, so I suppose they won't be affecting my credit in the near future. But the most recent is synchrony/paypal credit from 2020. Worst status 120 days late, not charged off, but last 30 day late was in January 2021. Then I paid it off completely. It's tanking my credit score and I really want to get a better interest rate on my car. Side note: being bipolar sucks. I was diagnosed in 2020, it consists of impulsive spending followed by months long depression. I've got a handle on it now that I know what I'm dealing with... But do I really need to wait 7 years to stop dealing with the consequences of my manic episodes? Thank you.

Iv been battling this car loan late payment with Ally financial for a year now. Iv called and sent dispute/forgiveness letters to Ally trying to get the 30 days late payment removed but they wont budge. I've always paid a lil more then what's due. Because of Covid I looked up the Fair credit act to see if there's protections for us from having negative marks on our credit during the pandemic but still no luck for me. Does anyone have any suggestion for me this is my only late payment.