Greetings, I’m hoping to get some sage advice on the credit clean-up project I’m working on. I’ll be purchasing a new home in July/August of 2013 so I thought I’d better run my credit reports and FICO and start cleaning some things up. Average FICO was 670. Credit reports showed a couple of small tax liens (in total under $9,000) which I’m currently in the process of taking care of and across the three credit reports there are 6 items that are showing negatively on my credit reports. Here’s where my questions begin. Two of the items only listed on Experian and are listed as “Potentially Negative Closed.” These two items are with the same CA (does not list original creditor), however, they appear as separate items on the report. Account status lists closed on both items with a 24/mo payment history update 2/2008 of “Key Derogatory”; which makes no sense because it’s out of the 24 mo period. No other entries over the past 24. One lists “date opened” as 1/2/2006 and the other as 6/6/2006. So here’s my question, rather than fire off a debt validation letter and then an offer to pay for delete would it be best to just let these drop off naturally? I’m assuming that they will drop off 7 years. I’m not worried about a lawsuit from the collection agency as the SOL in California where I live has long passed. Don’t know if this matters but the total of the two items is around $1,200. This is my first question.

Second question, this item appears on Trans Union with a pay status listed as “Account Paid in full: was collection.” Amount is just over $200. Listing is by a CA and detail lists the original creditor. Date closed is 5/2007 and Trans Union is estimating Item will be removed 7/2012; this is only 5 years not 7 so I’m thinking I want to work on getting this one removed. So here’s the question, is my only course of action since this is paid to dispute with Trans Union?

Third question, this item appears on Experian as “Potentially Negative Closed.” Date opened is 6/1/1995. Item is listed by OC. In the 24/Mo Payment History it shows “Key Derogatory” in 4/2006. What’s odd is from 5/2004 – 3/2006 Experian reports “OK” in green. On this account, I’m 100% confident this item is over 7 years old. Hypothetically speaking it probably would have gone into default around 2000. I assume firing off a dispute letter to Experian stating that based on when account originally went into default this is appearing on my report in error.

Fourth question (there’s only more, hang in there), I have an item that is listed on Trans Union, Experian and Equifax with a pay status of “in Collection.” Item is with a CA however the original creditor is listed (Comcast Cable). This item will not drop off until 2014 so I need to take care of it. Would my best course of action be to fire off a pay to delete to the CA? Or, to dispute it with the reporting agencies? Amount is just over $200.

Last question, I have an item that is only showing-up on Trans Union, pay status “in collections.” Listing is by CA and the original creditor is listed. This item won’t drop off until 2014. The amount on this item is $80 (parking ticket). I’ve heard that if the collection item is under $100 not to sweat it, pay as the mortgage lender will require this and move on.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my questions and thank you in advance for any and all advice.

I was served a summons a couple of weeks ago by LBN in Oklahoma City. The suit is over a debt owed to Credit One, which I do not dispute. We're talking just under $1000. The account was closed 9/2010. I responded back to them with a list of my financial obligations. My wife is disabled on SSD. With my income, we net around $3300 a month. After bills we have roughly $1100 left over for living expenses, medications, gas, etc. We received a call yesterday about my payment options, which there are 2. Garnish my wages at 25%, which would be roughly $600 or acccept their payment option of $225 a month. I was told that they tried for 4 months to reach me by mail, to which I cry bull. My wife is home 24/7 and meets the mail carrier daily at the mail box. I certainly cannot afford garnishment and even the $225 a month will stretch us thin. We live in a small town. Is this worth at least taking to court or should I just accept the fact I screwed up and take the $225 a month payments? Seems they're doing a lot of barking over $1000 plus fees. Payoff will be in 8 months. Also, they want my bank account number, for which we are totally against.
Thanks in advance.