My journey to credit repair starts NOW!!!!

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 8 - UTILIZATION %

 

Whenever people post their credit profile and ask for help generally the 2nd thing that is said right after get your reports mailed to you is lower your utilization %. Right now between the 2 of us we have $16309 worth of credit lines. As of today our balance on all cards is $3553. That leaves us a utilization % of 21.8%. My goal is to get this to under 5% and keep it there. There are a lot of people who think the only way to lower this is to pay things off but there is another way. We will achieve this through paying off current balances and also by getting credit line increases (CLI). Below is a link from BobWang that illustrates the importance of utilization %.

 

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=497484&p=4729267

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 9 - CARDS WITH BALANCES

 

This goes hand in hand with step 8 so I figured I would post it now as well. Right now we have 10 cards between the 2 of us and there is a balance on 7 of them. Prior to coming to this website I always thought it was best to run a balance on all cards even if it is very small. I figured the card companies would be happy since if you have a balance they are making money from you. However, when I came here I quickly discovered that the CC's may be happy but it actually hurts your score. Over the next 6 months I am going to work on paying off the cards and only having 1-3 cards report a balance. In a perfect world we would have 0 report a balance but that will come with time. When I started at this website my wife had 4 cards and all 4 had a reported balance. When I asked for help I was told by multiple people that this was a major problem. Well, it will be fixed ASAP and I will happily watch our scores rise. Another link that is provided by BobWang

 

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=497484&p=4729401

[futurehomeowner?]

STEP 10 - INQUIRIES AND B*

 

Now that we have applied for all of the cards that we are going to until the mortgage it is time to start working on getting my inquiries off the report. We each only have 11 spread between the big 3 and a few off them fall off this year anyways. I am going to just use 1 daily puller for now which is MPM. By the end of the year all of my HI should be gone. If I get to October and it is not looking like they are going to move then I will enroll in another service. Since we have a long term goal and not a short term we should be in good shape when it comes to our inquiries.

 

Well I have completed everything that I can right now. Now I just have to wait till I get some responses back from all of the letters that were sent.

[chugs102]

ONLY 11 inquiries spread across all 3 CRAs. That's not even worth bumping.

[futurehomeowner?]

Man its been tough just sitting and waiting. Everyday I read this board for at least 2 hours soaking up all the information. I am like a kid in a candy store when I get home from work because all I want to do is check the mail and see if I received any responses from all of my CMRR's that were sent 10 days ago.

 

Well today when I trotted out to the mailbox I saw 2 letters with HSBC return labels.

 

I open the first one and it says:

Dear Barbiaux,

We have received your credit bureau dispute regarding the Platinum Mastercard Account. We have completed our investigation and the above referenced account has been purged from our system. In addition we have instructed all of the major credit reporting agencies to delete any reference from your reports.

 

I received the same letter for a second account as well.

[ultra2207]

My most recent and most damaging account is an HSBC charge off from 2010. It is being reported by them and also a CA. I have no doubt I can get the CA off the reports but I'm not so optimistic about getting an OC to delete. Any details on how you got it removed? How old was it, was it sold, etc.

 

 

sent via tapatalk

[coachtom2183]

Man its been tough just sitting and waiting. Everyday I read this board for at least 2 hours soaking up all the information. I am like a kid in a candy store when I get home from work because all I want to do is check the mail and see if I received any responses from all of my CMRR's that were sent 10 days ago.

 

Well today when I trotted out to the mailbox I saw 2 letters with HSBC return labels.

 

I open the first one and it says:

Dear Barbiaux,

We have received your credit bureau dispute regarding the Platinum Mastercard Account. We have completed our investigation and the above referenced account has been purged from our system. In addition we have instructed all of the major credit reporting agencies to delete any reference from your reports.

 

I received the same letter for a second account as well.

[Rebuilding2010]

+1 this is the results of reading this board and working hard. Don't get hooked tho, some other ones might not be so easy. Not to worry though, with your dedication to this, there's no doubt you'll achieve your goal. Just be careful with adding those cards. While the inquiry hit and new account hit/ lowered AAOA might subside in a year, mortgage lenders I looked at were very weary of new accounts, since that's your end goal I thought I'd mention it.

[futurehomeowner?]

thank you for the advise. We are done adding anything new. Between the 2 of us we have added 3 cards recently and 1 is pending so at 4 new ones hopefully that won't be a big deal in a years time.

 

As for addicted.. hahaha yeah I am there. I just can't stop reading this site.

[keys2007]

Your posts are very encouraging. I have been lurking and will start my on page, I too have a HSBC CO from 2010 due to being laid off for over a year. I am reading the board to get my journey started most of my charges are medical and cc charge-offs. I have 4 positive tradelines 2 autos (1 paid and 1 in payment), my student loans, and a credit card. If you don't mind sharing, what did you send HSBC that they removed the CO? Thanks in advance for sharing. I am still trying to understand the process.

[futurehomeowner?]

So far the only responses that I have received from my certifieds are from the 3 CRA's regarding my request for phone and address deleting. EQ ad TU deleted everything except for my current info. EX pretty much told me to f off and deleted nothing. They said that all of my addresses are linked to at least 1 trade line so they are unable to remove them. They suggested that I contact the CA's and have them correct their reporting. Owell no big deal. Whenever I start to get items removed I will try to get the addresses deleted just to clean up my report.

[futurehomeowner?]

If you are following this thread I just wanted to post that Breeze was kind enough to change my user name to futurehomeowner?

[gooddfella]

Any chance you'd share with us the letter you sent to HSBC?

[305_sigma]

I have a 538 credit score as well. I would like to start applying but not sure what I would qualify for.

[Rebuilding2010]

Hey 305! I saw you resurrect a 2008 thread a sec ago and wanted to say, welcome to the board! Can I interest you in increasing your score before applying for a card? Just get started reading the newbie section, it'll get you familiarized with the crazy world of credit and get you started on your journey! Good luck!

[305_sigma]

Hey 305! I saw you resurrect a 2008 thread a sec ago and wanted to say, welcome to the board! Can I interest you in increasing your score before applying for a card? Just get started reading the newbie section, it'll get you familiarized with the crazy world of credit and get you started on your journey! Good luck!

 

Thank you Rebuilding. This thread has been very helpful. I will take your advice into consideration because I shopped around and got some outrageous credit card offers that I will not sign. One even tried to offer a variable APR of 36%!!!!

[futurehomeowner?]

Any chance you'd share with us the letter you sent to HSBC?

I actually just disputed it with the CRA's. It was my first letter sent and I didn't think about keeping a copy. I have copies of all other letters now but I pretty much did a jack attack type letter. I think they just deleted because it was old, way out of SOL and the original CC was through HSBC but it was sold 2 or 3 times so they may not have the records anymore or they may just not care.

 

305, having postitive TL's is just as important as removing the bad ones. You have 2 options. 1. Get a secured card or 2. Get one of the horrible first premier cards. If you go with the FP then just assume that you will not have available money to use on it and will be paying it monthly just to get a positive TL. If you have 1K or so I would go the secured route personally.

[426MW]

Best of luck with Midland and PFD. I can't get them to correctly update my TL after I paid them.

 

I've been at this clean up thing for almost a year and I can tell you there are more downs than ups, just be prepared for them. There will be days you want to say eff it, this shat isn't worth it! The waiting for a response has to be the worst part of it all. Keep GOOD records and create a paper trail that can't be disputed. Treat this just like a M-F job since the CRA's aren't open on the weekends. Saturday and Sunday were my time to decompress from the stresses of the week. If you stick with it, you can achieve your goal. Remember, it's the little battles that win the war!

 

Good luck!

[305_sigma]

 

Any chance you'd share with us the letter you sent to HSBC?

 

305, having postitive TL's is just as important as removing the bad ones. You have 2 options. 1. Get a secured card or 2. Get one of the horrible first premier cards. If you go with the FP then just assume that you will not have available money to use on it and will be paying it monthly just to get a positive TL. If you have 1K or so I would go the secured route personally.

Future, thanks for the info man. I went ahead and actually utilized my prepaid legal services yesterday to have them send letters out to dispute information on my credit report and send PFD letters to certain Collection agencies.

[futurehomeowner?]

1 MONTH UPDATE

 

I started 30 days on my journey to buy a house. The beginning steps have been such a slow process so I am glad that I fired off all of my letters at one time. Originally I was going to send a few letters each week but I then changed it up and sent all of my first letters within a few days of each other. I am still awaiting responses from a few of my letters but after reading threads on this site it seems that some of the CA's just ignore you. Most of my CMRR's were signed for on 4/8 so I have another 10 days or so before I start my next step. Even after what seems like a slow start I am not giving up and in fact I am more motivated than ever. Below are the things that have happened so far this month.

 

- Lawsuit pending vs midland for FDCPA violations

- 2 TL's completely removed without paying

- 2 GW letters with responses of NO

- 3 new TL's

[smurfette]

you mentioned "EAS- $120 to settle an old Comcast bill."

 

I had luck contacting Comcast directly and paying them rather than the CA. You might try that route if you haven't already...

[futurehomeowner?]

thank you, I did think about that but I wasn't sure if you could since it was already sent to a CA.

 

When you paid them did you have a CA reporting also? If so, how did you get it removed from the CRA's? I was unsure that if I just pay the OC will the CA be able to report it as paid or do they have to delete it since I did not pay them?

[phoenixisrising]

1 MONTH UPDATE

 

I started 30 days on my journey to buy a house. The beginning steps have been such a slow process so I am glad that I fired off all of my letters at one time. Originally I was going to send a few letters each week but I then changed it up and sent all of my first letters within a few days of each other. I am still awaiting responses from a few of my letters but after reading threads on this site it seems that some of the CA's just ignore you. Most of my CMRR's were signed for on 4/8 so I have another 10 days or so before I start my next step. Even after what seems like a slow start I am not giving up and in fact I am more motivated than ever. Below are the things that have happened so far this month.

 

- Lawsuit pending vs midland for FDCPA violations

- 2 TL's completely removed without paying

- 2 GW letters with responses of NO

- 3 new TL's

That is very good progress!

[Kles]

What does B* & C* mean?

[futurehomeowner?]

B*= Bumpage

C*= Choppage