Hello, This is my goal: boost my FICO by getting a credit card so those revolving payments, along with my car lease and student loan payments push me to 720+. These are my scores from myfico.com: EX 612 / EQ 623 / TU 631 My profile shows 5 accounts: 1. Sears (3/1998) - $0 balance paid in full no lates (authorized user) 2. Sallie Mae (4/2013) - $3353 - paying on time no lates (6 year loan with 5 years left) 3. Sallie Mae (4/2013) - $3202 - paying on time no lates (6 year loan with 5 years left) 4. BMW Financial (12/2013) - $15,500 - paying on time no lates (36 month lease with 8 payments made) 5. Ford Motor Credit (6/2005) - $0 balance paid in full no lates IRS Tax Lien (12/2010) - $3,500 My questions: 1. How badly is the IRS lien dragging down my FICO scores? 2. When I check the scores on myfico.com, why do they say I have too much debt even though I make $45K per year? 3. Is there a way to dispute the IRS lien with each CRA so it can be removed without having to wait 3 - 4 months for the IRS Fresh Start program to kick in? 4. I'm told my good credit (Sallie Mae and BMW) is not old enough, and because of the IRS lien, I can't get a bank credit card. My credit union (BECU) won't offer a secured one. Any suggestions on how I can get a credit card? I don't want a huge credit line, $1,000 will do to start. Thanks for reading this long post!
1. Probably pretty badly. 2. Credit reports don't take income into account, because INCOME isn't reported to your credit files. 3. More than likely, the dispute would be VERIFIED, unless there is an actual factual error. (AND the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT claims sovereign immunity for violating the FCRA, so even if there is an actual factual error, and the IRS verifies the actual factual error incorrectly, you are in for a longer legal battle, than most people have the stomach for. HINT: Mine was 14 months long, and it could have easily gone into more than twice that length of time. My thread documenting the lessons that I learned from the Federal Court, and the States Attorney's Office is at http://consumers.creditnet.com/Disc...so-you-want-sue-federal-government-72434.html 4. I would try looking for any and all secured providers to see if that would give you an in, but there could be a lot of them that won't with the IRS lien in play. Why? If the IRS would seize your assets for the lien, guess what happens to their security interest in the account guaranteeing your credit card.
Looks like I had a bit of luck: 1. Barclays approved me for an unsecured card. It's only $500 but enough to get the ball rolling. A friend has one and said they're reasonable with credit line increases after a few months of use. 2. IRS has agreed to remove the lien from each credit bureau within 120 days under their Fresh Start program. As long as I make timely payments they will not refile. Time will tell if they keep their word.
I would wait 4 months, if the lien is still showing then, I would dispute it as "LIEN SUPPOSED TO BE REMOVED BECAUSE OF FRESH START." it's a specific dispute, and hopefully they'd realize that it should be deleted (if it hadn't been deleted by then).
