About 5 1/2 - 6 years ago, I made some terrible credit decisions. Resulting in a very ugly credit report & rating.

About a year ago I decided I wanted to move on with my life, and looked into bankruptcy. Due to my personal situation, I was advised by 2 attorneys not to file. They suggested waiting it out for the 7 years.

I am wanting to rebuild my credit, and desperately need to (it's tiring being a credit leper). As many of you seem pretty knowledgable...Would you wait for the 7 year mark, and attempt to clean up your report then, or would you try to do a debt settlement?

Any advise would be great!

you might as well wait for the 7 years, you only have another year. I also did this and in Sept, my bad debts get wiped out. I waited til my 6th year and then started applying for credit cards and i got approved. you can try Aria at www.aria.com and see if you get approved by them. they approve 99 percent of the time. even if you paid these bad debts, they still stay on your credit report as "PAID BUT VERY LATE" for the 7 years. if its credit cards you want, try a secured card and prove yourself this way. good luck

Just wait it out. Order copies of your reports now from the big 3 so you can see when the majority of the derogatories are going to fall off. Wait until just after that, order them again and then start disputing the ones that are left.

If you have actually paid any of them off, you might wish to try and dispute them now if they are 5 years old. Many business don't keep records that old in a convenient place for them to be verified. Try this ONLY if the item has been paid and the account closed. If you still owe them money, it's probably still "on-line" and not archived on a tape in a box gathering dust in some warehouse.

hey,

I understand how hard it is to repair your credit. Your attorney has given you sound advice. The national bureaus will delete your negative info approx. 2-6 months from the last negative mark. At this point your credit scores will improve. This is important for unsecured credit. Secured credit such as mortgages are a little more flexible today. They look at the last two years of credit history along with ratios and salaries. The relating FICO score dictates your rate and product or program approval. Credit is actually very simple. I recommend you wait it out. In the mean time, there are subprime lenders which will issue credit on either a unsecured or secured basis depending on your circumstances. This will give you a good trade line to re-ebstablish your credit. Keep your balances well below the max credit line and pay your payments early. USE the card.
Good luck