My journey to credit repair starts NOW!!!!

[futurehomeowner?]

Well today marks the 1 month mark that I have been reading this website. I have spent more than 80 hours reading and re reading threads and stickies and everything else. 2 months ago I was depressed about my credit situation and I thought my only way out would be bankruptcy. Now after reading this wonderful website I have realized that I have a chance to better our borrowing power in maybe a years time. I would like to start a thread to chronicle my journey and maybe help other new people to this website at the same time. I hope this is allowed and if not mods can lock this up. I am not the finest writer and sometimes I have trouble getting my thoughts onto paper so I apologize in advance if I do not make sense.

 

First, A little about myself. I am 33, married, and our first son just turned 1 this month. When I was 19 I started a computer repair business. We were successful for 5 years and made a decent living. It only took 1 bad deal to ruin my business. When I made the decision to close I stopped paying all of my credit cards and credit lines. When I started the business I thought my lawyer incorporated me and I figured I could just let my debts go and I could start over. Well that was completely wrong. All of my debts were guaranteed by me and they all appeared on my credit to the tune of approx 30k. In 2005 I was really down about all of this so I hired one of those debt consolidation companies. After paying for almost 2 years I lost my job due to downsizing. I stopped paying the consolidation company and let my debt go again. The problem was, by me paying this company and them paying the CA's I re started the SOL on a bunch of cards which I am dealing with now. I also took 3 payday loans through shady internet people to try to get me through a tough time. When they went to take the money back at my next payday (which I didn't really have because I lost my job) there was no money so their e-check bounced and caused me a fee. All three of these companies attempted to take money from the account 3 times a day over the next 10 days. The bank charged me $39 each time for overdraft plus another fee. I went from having $9.83 in an account to -$2444 in ten days before they closed my account. I now have multiple 800 numbers call me every day which I assume is a collection agency and also the payday loan people. They have called my friends and family which has cause me great embarrassment. Fortunately no one has called me at my job or that would put me in a bad situation.

 

Fast forward to 1 month ago today. My wife really wants to buy a house so I came online to see how we could get it done and I stumbled upon this website. After all of the reading that I have done on here I once again have hope. We have not been late on any payments in over 3 years and we are ready to fix our past indiscretions. We make a very modest income so this will really take some work to get done in 1 year but I have the dedication to make it happen. If you have made it this far I really hope you can come on this journey with me and give me advice along the way to make our dreams come true. Now onto credit stuff.

 

Our Goals: Buy a house in 1 year by: Getting my credit north of 620 and utilization under 10%, get my wife's credit over 700 with a utilization under 10%

My positives: 2 paid in full never late car loans and 4 open credit cards never late

My negatives: 1 unpaid car loan ( talked about here http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=508563&hl=%2Bcar+%2Bloan), bank account negative by $2000, 8 credit cards in collections, Comcast bill, progressive bill, wachovia bank account, utilization is over 60%

The Good: My total debt for all past due items except for the car loan only totals $5865 and a bunch of it falls off between this year and early next year.

 

My Wife's positives: 5 credit cards open and never late, 1 auto loan paid in full never late, AAOA is 9.8 years

Her negatives: 2 CO credit cards 1 off which sued and now has a judgement, AES student loan that was 90 days late in 2008 but it is showing on her credit as 11 different loans so that's 11 90 day lates, 3 old credit cards that were charged off but she paid them off 6 years ago, and util is at 40%

 

My current FICO is 538 and hers is 612

 

Thank you for reading.. Now let the good times roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[deadbishop]

I for one will be following your journey thread and wish you the best of luck!

I had a similar problem with a business but I did file bk7.

If I found this site sooner I think I would have went a different way.

 

My goal is to buy a house too but now need to wait 2 full years to qualify because of the bk. I have 16 months to go.

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 1 - OPTING OUT OF PRE SCREENED OFFERS

 

If you want to stop receiving credit card and insurance offers through the mail you can go to

https://www.optoutprescreen.com

You can opt out for 5 years or for life. You also have the option to opt back in if you change your mind.

 

This does not help your credit score but it will eliminate any temptation to add a credit card that you probably shouldn't open anyways. AKA, ones with a $200 yearly fee and 36% APR.

 

Step 1 has been completed today, 03/25/2013

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 2 - REMOVING BAD ADDRESSES

 

Today I contacted TU and they removed all but my current address. EX and EQ would not so I sent a letter of dispute to them with verification of my address. Hopefully they will remove the incorrect ones but if not I am not going to fret too much over it. I did not dispute any addresses on my wife's report as the items that I will be working on for her don't matter.

 

Removing addresses won't increase my score but it might make it easier when it comes time to dispute debts with the CRA's. Step 2 is not complete until I get at min a response from my mailed disputes but I can move on to my next task in the mean time.

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 3 - GOOD WILL LETTERS

 

I have decided that there are 2 trade lines that are worth sending a goodwill letter to. The first one is AES, there are approx 11 open accounts for student loans and in 2008 we were 90 days late. Since they have a new trade line for each loan which was each semester our one late is showing up as 11 lates. We are still paying off this loan and only have been late the one time so I will give it a shot. After reading the student loan area of this website I am not too hopeful that they will remove the lates but I won't know unless I try.

 

During the same time we were 120 days late on a JC Penney card. They eventually charged it off but we paid the balance in full directly to them so now it reads, Current, paid or paying as agreed. There is no mention of it being charged off but it does list 6 months of late payments. This card is run through GECRB so I actually have hopes that they will be kind enough to remove the lates.

 

I have the CMRR's ready and will mail them on my way to work tomorrow morning.

[chugs102]

I enjoy following your progress. This also helps newbies who will one day be needing some guidance.

 

Good luck!

[futurehomeowner?]

thank you chugs!!! Even if nobody reads them it really puts my in the mindset to get it done. I have procrastinated my good will letters for a week now and last night I only wrote them because I didn't want to look foolish by having an entire week between posts.

[coachtom2183]

Hey good luck with the rebuild. I was in much the same position and after lurking and reading over and over I finally got my crap together and slowly but surely I'm improving. You mine as well be prepared to pay off any negative trades if they are in sol if you want to get a mortgage they are going to tell you that anyway. I plan on getting a va loan next summer since I have to wait at least 2 years after short sale and I have a auto repo that's only 16 months old with a balance of $5100.00 and a credit union debt for $915.00 about the same age. I'm saving now to hopefully pfd on both before I ever apply for the loan.

Edited March 29, 2013 by coachtom2183

[kls0654]

Please keep us posted as I am looking to see how you will succeed

 

Good luck & I wish you the best

Edited March 29, 2013 by kls0654

[onceuponadime]

Hey, Im still somewhat new to all this, I have been reading for a little while and have just started mine and my boyfriend's credit repair journey. I look forward to following your posts!

Good Luck with Everything

Edited March 29, 2013 by Lucia

[Sweettweet39]

Hi Barbiaux,

 

Good luck on your journey. I'm new here and will follow your post. Do you have a sample good will letter?

[kls0654]

Yes I want to see it too a sample latter please

[ultra2207]

STEP 3 - GOOD WILL LETTERS

 

I have decided that there are 2 trade lines that are worth sending a goodwill letter to. The first one is AES, there are approx 11 open accounts for student loans and in 2008 we were 90 days late. Since they have a new trade line for each loan which was each semester our one late is showing up as 11 lates. We are still paying off this loan and only have been late the one time so I will give it a shot. After reading the student loan area of this website I am not too hopeful that they will remove the lates but I won't know unless I try.

 

During the same time we were 120 days late on a JC Penney card. They eventually charged it off but we paid the balance in full directly to them so now it reads, Current, paid or paying as agreed. There is no mention of it being charged off but it does list 6 months of late payments. This card is run through GECRB so I actually have hopes that they will be kind enough to remove the lates.

 

I have the CMRR's ready and will mail them on my way to work tomorrow morning.

Maybe I'm crazy but I've never seen a student loan area on this site. Link? I'm on tapatalk to maybe the layout is different..

 

 

sent via tapatalk

[ultra2207]

Nvm, I just found it. I never venture beyond main credit forum and the medical section. Nice, I have a lot of student loan work to do.

 

 

sent via tapatalk

[futurehomeowner?]

thank you everyone for the well wishes. I will post some links to letters that I am sending but I am going to keep my good will letter to myself. Being student loans need to have a really good reason to remove anything I gave them just that. In the sample section of this website there are a few and you could also view one here http://consumers.creditnet.com/Discussions/credit-talk/t-goodwill-nutcase-letter-evolution-27190.html

 

coachtom: we are prepared to make payments on our debt but that will be a last resort. The one thing that I am truly worried about is my car loan. Worst case scenario we will have to wait until late next year when it falls off.

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 4 - VALIDATION LETTERS

 

Validation letters are an important part of fighting debt. All communication to a CA should be sent via CMRR (certified mail return receipt). Also remember to never sign anything going to a CA. You do not want them to have your signature as it may end up on another piece of paper. I will be mailing out 11 CMRR's tomorrow so hopefully my $60 will get at least 1 deletion. Also all of my debt is way out of SOL for Pennsylvania so I am not worried about any kind of retaliation. There is also a ton of good info on validation letters at this link http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=341108&hl=

 

My wife has 1 company worth sending a validation letter to. We actually did receive a letter from MCM but it was sent to her old address. The only reason we received it was because we still know the people who live there. I am going to send them the letter in the link below and not acknowledge that we received the letter. I am doing this because we never did receive the original dunning letter. We only received the latest one which is outside the first 30 days.

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12953&page=1

 

Now on my credit I have a bunch of letters to write. The companies that I will be sending them to are MCM, NRC (jefferson capital), LVNV funding, NCO, and EAS, I am going to send a few using the sample below and the others using the sample in the link above.

 

Your name and address

 

Date

Re: Account # XXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear D-Bags,

I dispute your claims in their entirety and request validation.

 

It is also inconvenient to contact me by phone so please
only contact by mail from this point forward.

Sincerely,
ME

 

Now on to my next task, but that will have to wait till morning. Good night!!

[sosabe77]

We all have to start somewhere. Good luck!

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 5 - OBSOLETE LETTERS

 

My wife has 2 TLs that are due to fall off in the next 3 months and I have 1 that falls off in Sept. of this year. I went onto TU's website and disputed all 3 as obsolete. I sent letters to EQ and EX for the 3 TL's.

 

I didn't send these letters with CMRR because it is not action that is super important. These will all fall of by themselves this year but if I can get them knocked off sooner then all the better. I have listed below a thread that discussed obsolete letters.

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=308631

 

Happy Easter!!!!

[Linxnme]

Congrats on your mission and thanks a lot for the tips. This is truly helpful.

[futurehomeowner?]

thank you for your support. I received an email today that TU removed all of them. Now I just have to see if my letters work.

[coachtom2183]

nice!!

[futurehomeowner?]

ha, it would be nice to see if my scores changed but MPM hates me

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 6 - PAY FOR DELETE LETTERS (PFD)

 

It may be Easter and the CA's are at bay but I am still hard at work. Today I have picked 3 accounts that I am sending a PFD letter to. All three of these don't fall off until 2015 or later. There are 2 other ones that fall off mid next year that I may send as well if I have success on other items but that decision will be made in a few months. I am offering a 75% settlement in exchange for a deletion. I know I could offer much less but if I can get a quick resolution then I will be happy with that. The big one is a judgment so they don't have a great reason to work with me so I threw in my letter that I am contemplating bankruptcy in hopes that they would cave. The letters I sent are the following.

Midland Funding- $1161 to settle a citi bank CC judgment

EAS- $120 to settle an old Comcast bill.

Jefferson Capital- $80 to settle an overdraft from wachovia

 

here is a link for a PFD letter

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=507255

Edited March 31, 2013 by barbiaux

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 7 - ADD NEW CREDIT LINES

 

After reading on here, it seems like you should have 6+ cards. I know the inquiries will hurt short term but removing them will be another step later on. We have added a few cards in the last 30 days and we each want to add 1 more from a major service such as visa, mastercard, or discover. We applied for the Best Buy card in hopes of getting the actual credit card but we only got approved for the store card. Last week we did the same with Wal Mart in hopes of getting their Discover but just like Best Buy they only gave us the store card. Tomorrow we are both going to apply for the new CET rewards card that is coming out. Comenity is running the card and we already have a card or 2 by this bank so I am hoping we will get this card. If we get turned down I am going to open a secured card so we can get another major card instead of a wallet full of store cards. After I get our cards tomorrow I will add step 8 which will be utilization of the cards.

My Wallet: Card/Limit
Merrick Unsecured Visa: $1400

Kay Jewelry: $2500

Giant Eagle: $300

Lane Bryant (AU): $860

Emblem Card: $149

 

Her Wallet:
Merrick unsecured: $1400

Kay Jewelry: $7600

Lane Bryant: $860

Walmart: $600

Best Buy: $600

[ultra2207]

FWIW I've used the hardball tactic of tossing around the word bankruptcy when dealing with judgements. I've been successful both times I've done it. I paid about 60% of the total amount for both. Hopefully you have the same results! Following your progress.

 

 

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