New Member - Questions about Eviction & Repossession

[joeyoey]

HI everyone,

I’m new here (been reading the boards for a while but just now getting around to actually posting a question).

Back at the end of 2009 I had some bad luck with my credit. I was working full-time and I also had a small business on the side. I lost my job & my business pretty much went belly up & I ended up having to move back home with my parents for about a year - quite a blow to my ego at 39 years old! 2009 was NOT a good year.

Luckily, I’ve never carried “too” much credit but during this time what little credit I did have all went bad. I had several small balance credit cards that I defaulted on, I had a medical bill & electric bill go to collections, I was evicted and I lost my truck due to a repossession.

The medical bill I’m not too worried with. It was only reported to two credit agencies. I disputed it and it’s been dropped from one and I’m waiting to hear on the other. The credit cards I’m disputing one at a time and I worked out a deal with the collection agency for the electric bill and paid it off. It’s still on my credit but it’s marked as paid. That didn’t seem to help my credit score any but I suppose being paid is better than not and at least I know it will eventually drop off now & I won't have to worry about hearing from them again. Also, the credit cards are all pretty small balances & I'm guessing because of that I've never heard from any collection agencies about them.

What I’m concerned about is the eviction & the repossession on my truck.

The eviction is listed with all three bureaus. The balance is $3489 & was “opened” in March of 2010 (this was actually the date it was reported, I moved out in Dec. 2009). With Experian it says the account status is “Closed” & the payment status is “ Seriously past due / Assigned to attorney, collection agency or credit grantor’s internal collection dept”. With Experian it says the status is “closed” & the payment status is “unpaid”. With TransUnion it says the Account status os “Open” & the payment status is “collection account”.

With the repossession account, it says the account was opened in June 2005. They repossessed the truck in February (or March) 2010. It lists a past due with all three agencies of $4290. All three bureaus says the account is closed & the payment status is listed as “charge-off” for Experian, “Bad debt & placed for collection” with Equifax & “charged off as bad debt” for TransUnion.

What I’m wondering is what (if anything) I should do about these? I’ve NEVER heard from my landlord about the eviction or the finance company about the repossession. I just moved out & they came and got the truck and they’ve never made ANY attempt to contact me or collect either of these. Should I try & dispute these with the hopes that they might get deleted (as much as I’d like to say otherwise I have to admit they’re legit)? If I contact the bureaus now, they’ll have my current contact information and maybe they’ll try to collect. Should I just “lay low” with the hopes that they will fall off (of my reports) in March 2017?

Does anyone have any advice on how I should proceed with these? Things are (finally) looking up for me financially and I'd very much like to get my credit somewhat back in decent shape, but right now it's a MESS.

Sorry for the LONG post!

Thanks so much in advance for any help,

Joey