Thread: rebuilding credit help

Hello-

I recently came across this forum while doing some online research; I am in the process of trying to clear up my credit. I am currently at 515 per Experian, and need to get to about 630 in order to qualify for an FHA loan. The majority of what on my credit is from when I was 20 and stopped paying on accounts due to losing my job and hard times. I am hoping that with the information provided some of y’all would be able to provide me with some advice.

I have 3 accounts active and in good standing, 2 credit cards and a car loan. One credit card is 9 months old with CapOne and the other card and loan are both 2-3 months old. Between the two cards I owe about 65%, i will pay these off in full 90 days before applying for a loan.

These are the negative accounts that I have in collections. I will just list the CA in hopes that someone has advice on working with them, along with the date of the last report so that you have an accurate idea of what I am facing.
1. RGS financial: last report on feb/2012
This is for a dental bill that was sent to collections, it looks like my insurance did not pay on the amount and because I moved I never received a notice of the amount due. I plan of fighting this because when I called to see what it was for the CA had the incorrect address for me in a town I have never lived in, and when I followed up with the dental office 4 months after my work they said that I did not owe anything.
2. LVN Funding LLC: last report jan/2012
3. LVN Funding LLC: last report jan/2012 (two separate accounts)
4. GTE Southwest: feb 2012
Paid this account as it was only 57.00, I tried to have them delete the account but they would not budge. I decided to pay because the SOL was so far away and the last report date was this month. I figured if it were going to stay on my credit it was better at a “paid in full” than open collections.
5. retail card that was charged off- last report was in 2007- figured I should find the CA and pay them before they report the acct. maybe they will not report it if I pay it off. Any thoughts??
6. Credit Protection Associates: last report may/2010, paid account in full, the agreed to remove it from my CR
7. Credit First- retail card charged off- last report date may/2006

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Creditnet!

It's good to hear that you have some active positive accounts on your credit reports. If you've got the cash now, pay off those credit cards in full. There's no reason to keep the balances hanging around, and the decrease in your credit utilization will have a very positive effect on your FICO scores.

Now, on to all the baddies.

1.) Have you disputed through the CRAs? This sounds like it might be bogus, so I would definitely fight it. Try following up directly with the dental provider as well to see what info. you can extract from them.

2 & 3.) Have you sent DV letters to the CAs?

4.) Not much you can do about this now that it's been paid. But yes, to an underwriter a "paid" collection will certainly look better than an "unpaid" one. Your FICO scores, however, don't really card. It's still considered a negative mark.

5.) Stirring the pot could cause the CA to report this as a collection too. If no one is contacting you regarding this debt, you might want to hold off a bit longer while you focus on the others first. Others might have different opinions on this.

6.) PFD is ideal, so nice work

7.) Has this been sold to a CA or is the debt still sitting with Credit First? What kind of communication have you received thus far?

"Have you disputed through the CRAs? This sounds like it might be bogus, so I would definitely fight it. Try following up directly with the dental provider as well to see what info. you can extract from them."

I just got off the phone with the manager at the Dental office, looks like my insurance refused to pay which is why i had a balance. (this issue gets messy because the office only tried to call me 1 time and left a msg before they sent it to collections, also dental insurance is a scam! thats a dif rant)

after speaking with the dental office, I spoke with the CA directly in hopes that i could scare them into a PFD. I am always careful in wording and make sure that i do not accept responsibility of the debt. I told them that i did not feel that the claim was correct and that i would be disputing the claim if they did not agree to the PFD. my grounds for the dispute is that the information for me is incorrect (they have the complete wrong address), and when i spoke with the dental office they said that i did not owe anything. the manager said that he would call me tomorrow and let me know what he was able to do.

2 & 3.) Have you sent DV letters to the CAs?

Will be sending DV's out this weekend. what should i expect after sending them out?

7.) Has this been sold to a CA or is the debt still sitting with Credit First? What kind of communication have you received thus far?

they have the address to my parents house, so i have not had any communication with them at all. i may just hold off on this one until i have purchased a house. this way if i have to settle for a "paid in full" it will not affect any of my plans for a while.

Insurance claims can get really messy, as you've discovered. The problem is that the responsibility to make sure the medical provider receives payment in full always falls back on the consumer, but communication among consumer, dental provider, and insurance company often breaks down and is difficult to follow. Keep us updated and let us know what response you get from the dental office.

In regards to the DVs, give them 30 days to respond with satisfactory proof that you owe the debt and they have the right to collect it.

Another thing to look for in the dental bill tradeline, is it properly listed as > MEDICAL < if not, it's a violation of your HIPPA privacy rights, and you could always use a HIPPA suit of the provider and CA to get some cooperation... :)

Originally Posted by jam237

Another thing to look for in the dental bill tradeline, is it properly listed as > MEDICAL < if not, it's a violation of your HIPPA privacy rights, and you could always use a HIPPA suit of the provider and CA to get some cooperation... :)

Well they called me back telling me that the "decision maker" still had not given them an answer, in which case I told them that I needed an answer by 3/14 or I would be filing a dispute. I also told them that if I had to file a dispute I would also file a HIPPA suit because they are not accurately reporting my trade line. Let’s see if this gets a fire started!

I also checked my CR and it looks like my PFD went through and the trade line came off on Experian, I will be checking the other two in 45 days when I have a free triple score update. One trade line down 8 more to go.

Originally Posted by JoshuaHeckathorn

5.) Stirring the pot could cause the CA to report this as a collection too. If no one is contacting you regarding this debt, you might want to hold off a bit longer while you focus on the others first. Others might have different opinions on this.

The CA who recently purchased this account just called me, how should I approach this trade line seeing that it has been sometime since the last report? The guy I spoke with said that they are not in charge of reporting the account, and that their client was the ones who did this. Should I ignore them and try to find the client (I think he said his client was Archis*) and deal with them?
Also after a CA comes back and validates the debt, do I proceed with a PFD letter? At this point all the accounts negative on my report are in fact mine, I would just like to pay off my debt and learn from my mistakes.

Originally Posted by eozturktx

The CA who recently purchased this account just called me, how should I approach this trade line seeing that it has been sometime since the last report? The guy I spoke with said that they are not in charge of reporting the account, and that their client was the ones who did this. Should I ignore them and try to find the client (I think he said his client was Archis*) and deal with them?
Also after a CA comes back and validates the debt, do I proceed with a PFD letter? At this point all the accounts negative on my report are in fact mine, I would just like to pay off my debt and learn from my mistakes.

Have you sent a DV letter to this CA yet? If not, that's your first step.

I'm a bit confused because you say that they recently purchased your account, but then they also said that they're "client" reported the charge-off. If they purchased the debt, the OC shouldn't be their "client". It kind of sounds to me like they're actually collecting on behalf of the OC, which means the debt hasn't been sold.

If the debt hasn't been sold, I think it's worth trying to work directly with the OC to see if they will pull your account back from collections so you can pay them instead of the CA. The OC might not be willing to do it, but it's worth a try. The last thing you want is a collection to show up on your credit reports in addition to the original charge off for the same debt.