Hi guys. I used to be a member here many, many moons ago. I can't even remember what my user name was it was so long ago...LOL. Anyway, back then I had dismal credit (FICO was about 515) and decided to start the repair process and all these years later I have managed to remove all the negative TL's from my credit report and my FICO is now 796. (Yessssss!) Anyway, I need your help again please. I married last month to a wonderful man who's just the sweetest, most considerate person ever, the problem is that a few years ago he was suffering in a emotionally and mentally abusive marriage and he made the huge mistake of taking prescription pills to mask his growing despair. He spiraled from a A+ credit rated, productive, white collar member of society to a penniless drug addict. He hit rock bottom and, in addition to everything else, his credit suffered tremendously as a result of his addiction. Anyway, he's completely clean and sober now and is even attending college to become a drug abuse counselor and help others avoid the same fate. I'm so proud of him. He's done SO much to turn his life around and I want to help him rebuild his credit. I have some experience with credit repair based off of my own successes over the years, but I'd really like to run some of the problems on his reports and my possible repair strategies by you guys and see if you have any additional hints or tips for me. Here is the basic story: Before we ever met and for about 3 or 4 years he was a functioning drug addict (seems like an oxymoron) and one day he tested positive on a random drug check at work and was fired. He was addicted to oxycontin pills and later ratcheted it up to cocaine. So he had no means of support and ran his credit cards up to the limits taking cash advances to fuel his drug habit and in addition all that he neglected to pay all his other bills. He pretty much sat alone at home in a drug induced depression and let everything go to hell around him. It was a pretty bleak life from what I understand. Anyway, he was busted with drugs and was arrested and spent a few months in jail where he went through rehab and overcame the opiate addiction and turned his life around. He is now clean and sober and has been for a year and a half. This is where I come into his life and we fall in love and get married and all the happy stuff happens. His grandmother, who may actually be an angel in disguise, has offered us a large lump sum of cash to pay off these debts and that is exactly what we intend to do, post haste. I pulled his reports and the three credit reports are now all reporting several charge offs and they each have a handful of collection accounts too. Thank goodness we don't have any public records on his reports, yet. I am considering contacting the OC's for the 4 large credit card accounts that he had and seeing if they'll consider a settlement, but since I never had the financial means to do a settlement agreement with any of my own debts I'm uncertain where or how to start...? I have no pratical experience with crafting settlement letters. Would you suggest I explain his story to the creditors and hope for leniency? Also, these 4 debts are are listed as charged off, so should I still try to contact the OC, or do you think they've been sold to a CA or a JDB? (If they have been sold I don't see any TLs for them by CA/JDB on his reports...?) Also, to complicate things once again he was so freaked out by the state of his credit that he threw away all of the collection letters he'd received about these debts so I have almost no starting point except for the contact information on his credit reports. <<bangs head against wall>> The 4 Large Credit Accounts: Arizona Federal Credit Union $15,000 Charged Off DOLA 10/2008 Case Bank $9,055 Charged Off DOLA 1/2008 Discover Financial Serv. $12,200 Charged Off DOLA 3/2008 Ultimate Electronics $2200 Charged Off DOLA 10/2007 Now as far as the various smaller ($29-$900) collection accounts go I was wondering if I shouldn't just DV them? Remind me because it's been a long time...since I don't have any of the original collection letters they (presumably) sent to him and I know the 30 days has passed am I just SOL as far as DVing them?? Should I just offer them a PFD and barring them agreeing to that, negotiate a small settlement with them for a 'paid-closed' notation. Sound good? Thank you in advance for any help and guidance you can offer me. I know from the story it seems like I may have bit off more than I can chew, but really my husband is a wonderful man that just made a very poor decision to self-medicate himself to deal with a bad family life and everything spiraled out of control. I know he'll remain sober for the rest of his life and he's a strong advocate for anti-drug education and intervention. He'll never be that person again, I just want to help him repair the damage from that sad, scary time of his life.
First, congrats on obtaining your own stellar score - nice work! And it sounds like you're on quite the quest here to help your new husband get his credit back on track. That big lump sum of cash from his grandmother should certainly help. The 4 biggies sound like they might still be with the OC since you say there aren't any collections showing up on his credit reports for these accounts. That surprises me, but it could be the case. You may want to try calling the OCs to determine the status - if it has been sold or transferred to a CA, they won't want to deal with you and they'll direct you to the CA anyway. Then you can begin the process of trying to negotiate PFDs. I would shy away from writing a long, life story type of argument to any CA. They don't really care, so keep it simple and to the point. Some of our senior members here recommend getting the CA to sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of your settlement if they won't technically agree to a PFD. That way, when you dispute it through the CRAs after payment has been made, they won't respond and the CRAs will delete the account...just another strategy to think about. For the smaller collections, you can still send a DV letter after the 30 days have passed. You won't be able to exercise all your rights provided under the FDCPA, but you may still want to send them. You may also want to dispute any inaccuracies or missing information through the CRAs first to see if you get lucky and some of them go away on their own. Good luck!
contacting the OCs? Is that really preferable to just getting 3 real credit reports and going by what they say, so far as who he owes money to?
I agree, it's always a good idea to get your credit reports and work off of what you find. It does sound like the OP has checked her husband's reports and didn't find anything other than charge-offs from the OCs. So if the OP really just wants to take care of the debts and pay them off once and for all, then contacting the OC might be a quick way to find out who owns the debt now.
Quite frankly I think that is hardly the way to treat an angel in disguise. Grandmothers and Grandfathers alike usually end up with severe financial problems of their own as their health deteriorates. Medical bills pile up very quickly soon leaving them destitute almost no matter how wealthy they may be. If you accept her gracious gift what will she do when she becomes desperately ill and maybe needs a transplant or other expensive medical treatment and ends up dying because she can't afford the treatment she needs? If your husband has kicked his drug habits and started to take responsibility for his actions and his life then would leaning on an elderly relative for money be in keeping with his goal of taking full responsibility for his own actions and life? I don't think so. I'm sure the both of you may be thinking of paying her back but just haven't said so here. If so, great but what if you can't do that? Remember that drug addicts do a great deal of damage to their bodies as well and he may suddenly and unexpectedly develop some serious medical problem himself and end up unable to work because of it leaving you the sole provider. Then how would you pay the grandmother back? If you have stellar credit why are you not willing to take out a loan and the both of you work to pay off those old debts if you think doing that will improve his credit scores? If I were you I would not admit that your husband had any such thing as a drug addiction problem. It is well known and widely believed that once a druggie always a druggie therefore if any problems develop in the future he will return to his old ways. Of course that may or may not be true in your husbands or anybody else's case but the stink is there in the minds of others. Why amplify on that by admitting anything that others may use against him or even you? Never admit anything, never try to educate the other fellow especially if that other fellow don't really care or want to know in the first place? Paying off debts to creditors, those who loaned the money in the first place, is a great idea and I'm all for it but why not do it in a way that is beneficial to both parties as well? Building great credit is done by paying off one's debts in a timely fashion. So why not have him call up his creditors and offer them a settlement in full of all that is owed them in paymnets of so much a month? Compute your offers so that the debt would be paid off in a reasonable period of time, say 18 to 24 months even if you do have the cash to pay in full? Make them a viable offer such as the following: If I agree to pay you all that you claim I owe over the next ?? months will you reinstate the account to good standing and issue a new credit card when I have paid the debt down to below the original credit limits on the old card? Some will say they can't do that because they have turned it over to a debt collector and the debt collector must be paid too. Tell them that the debt collector has never even called you and if they want to pay the debt collector who did nothing at all for them that is their perogative but not your problem. You are wiling to pay all that they claim you owe but what they do with the money is up to them. Some will go for it and some won't. Those who do get their money, those who don't can just go skate for it. I've done it and it can work. In the meantime you can also work at disputing the old stuff off the credit reports but as the debt grow older they have less and less impact on his scores. You should know that. Might take a couple of years to rebuild his credit that way but that's better than borrowing money to pay off those old debts by far.
While I do truly appreciate that you took the time to reply to my post, I feel the need to clarify that I would never, and I mean never ever, accept a gift of money from any person who was not in a position to offer it without any risk to their own financial indendence, and I'm frankly embarrassed that you thought otherwise of me. I apologize for not clarifying this in the novella that I typed out earlier that this money he's receiving from his grandmother is not a loan from an elderly pensioner who's struggling to make ends meet; it's his inheritance, in advance, from his grandmother who lives quite comfortably off of the interest she draws as the administrator of the family trust fund. We are not borrowing money from her, this is the money she had previously set aside for him in her will. She just knows that he needs help now and wants to help him with that. He and I are both deeply in her debt for giving him the means to repair the past financial damage from back when he was a "druggie". We'd do anything to help her if she needed us, now or in the future, and she knows that. She's recently mentioned the desire to sell her house and move into an upscale retirement home and we've suggested that instead she can come live with us and take our spare guest room for free. She declined our offer though. (I don't think our house is quite as fancy or has nearly the same amenities as the retirement home she's thinking about moving to though...lol.) Additionally, while trying to lay the groundwork to fully explain his situation I can see now that I overshared with regards to my husband's past problems and opened us up for critical judgements, even though we are ALL here trying to fix our credit for some reason or another and none of us want to be judged for WHY we are here... I know that I may sound naive to some when I say that he is clean and sober now and will remain that way, but you just have to believe me when I say that I know this for an absolute fact. He's not the kind of recovering addict that struggles with his addiction. He is repulsed at the thought of his former life and addiction and would rather die than return to that. Even when he was in the throes of his addiction he was desperate to get out. He doesn't crave drugs like some recovered addicts do, the very thought makes him ill. That is partly why he wants to be a drug counselor. I hope that helps everyone understand why I so fully trust him and will do what I can to help him fix the past damage and build a life with me; I know there is zero chance he will relapse.
Most of us are simply here to help and never judge in any way. I do wish you and your new husband the best and hope that you're able to find some support and advice in the forum.
I hope that as well. I like to see people who have turned their lives around succeed. Best of everything to both of you.
It was not my intention to be judgmental. Sorry if I came off sounding judgmental. Let's look at it another way. So let's say he accepts the gift from his grandmother and pays off all that he owes. What will be his benefit from doing that as opposed to doing nothing about the past mistakes? Critical judgments? In the real world many people are extremely critical and judgmental. You say that your husband spent time in jail? Do both of you realize that as a result of that he will never again be allowed to own a gun, you can't own one and neither can any of your children while living in your home? Do you realize that he can't even be a passenger in a vehicle in which a gun is present and even though he may be unaware that a gun is present in the vehicle? If he is found in the company of anyone having a gun he can be sentenced to prison? He can never again go hunting with any kind of firearm? Talk about being judgmental? I think that is being judgmental to the extreme because the right to keep and bear arms is one of the foundation stones of our constitution. I can see a long probationary period during which time a felon may not own a gun or but taking that right away for life is simply wrong in my opinion. Talk about judgmental? How about the fact that in some states your husband can never vote in any election and can be sentenced to prison if he does exercise his right to vote? In some other states he may not vote in any election until a certain time has passed since his release from any incarceration. Is that not judgmental to the extreme? I think so. In some states he may never hold any public office again. Is that not judgmental? Some positions he might wish to accept in his future career might not be open to him because the position requires bonding and other security checks and he will have to reveal his background because if he don't he can be sentenced to prison for failure to reveal his history. Society does impose some severe sanctions upon him even though he has turned his life around. His background can and will be revealed in certain types investigations by the credit bureaus no matter how well he has turned his life around. Its not fair in my opinion but that's the way it is. Quite so, and I did not nor do I intend to be judgmental either. So let's get back to what benefit is to be had by paying off all those old debts? If there is no benefit to be had then why would either of you want to waste the money regardless of where it might come from? Maybe your husband don't even owe the money anymore. Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on some or all of those debts? Whether it has or not depends on many factors including what state you live in as well as what the terms and conditions of the contract are. You may want to investigate the laws in your state to see what the statutes say about that. In doing so, don't rely on what someone may tell you because they may be wrong. A great online source for that kind of information is to be found at Lawdog.com but no matter how good they might be you still need to check out the actual statute for your state because laws are changed from time to time. Court decisions can also invalidate state or federal laws. A law is not really valid law until it has been ruled on by the latest decision of the court of highest jurisdiction having ruled that particular law. The United States Supreme Court can easily overturn any law or portion of any law even though it has been signed into law by the President of the United States. State Supreme Courts also have that power at the state level. But the question you should be asking yourself is what benefit is to be gained by paying off those old debts? In making that critical decision the opinions of others including myself are of no importance whatever. I may or may not have the opinion that he should pay off those old debts because it is the morally correct thing to do. If I tell you something like that am I or am I not being judgmental? If I tell you that paying off those old debts is simply the right thing to do am I not being judgmental? Would you think I was being judgmental if I said that I think you should do whatever makes the most sense from a business standpoint rather than from a moral standpoint? You tell me.
Thank you Joshua, I appreciate it. Thanks Hedwig. BTW, I LOVE your siggy quote. Do you have your towel handy...just in case? Bill, thank you for your clarification. You addressed something that he and I had discussed just last night and that is the option of keeping the money he's inheriting (it's still with Grandma) and saving it for emergencies and him filing bankruptcy and us living off of my credit until his credit recovers. I did just buy a new house for us and a new family-sized car and I have a stable job with decent medical and dental benefits. Technically we don't need to seek any new credit for several years, barring unforseen circumstances like a medical emergency, of course. Every fiber of me (and him) tells us it's not the right thing to do, but as you said, when you look at it from a strictly business standpoint it is the logical thing to do when we've got 3 kids to provide for and he's unemployed. As far as I understand he's pretty judgement proof right now. He's unemployed (attending college) and he doesn't own anything (no vehicle or property or possessions to speak of) and he and I haven't even filed our marriage certificate yet and, I haven't chaged my name and he hasn't changed his address to my new house, so our marriage is still invisible to anyone who doesn't know us. The DOLA on the debts was in early 2008 and most of them became charge-offs just last spring so they're pretty fresh. From what I can tell, we are still looking at about 6 years if we let them heal over time, unless of course someone sues him, which is probable considering the AZ laws for these types of contracts, but they won't get much because he has nothing. Do you think bankruptcy is a viable option? Any thoughts?
Of course--a good traveler always has a towel!! I keep several in the car, actually. I do a lot of traveling and you never know when you'll need them. I always put a towel over me if I'm eating or drinking in the car and I have on good clothes. Saves a lot of embarrassment.
I would imagine that filing BK is exactly what Caspar Milquetoast would have done rather than take a chance on offending anyone. I'm sure that you may have never heard of Caspar Milquetoast since his cartoon strip went out of existence back about 1938 or so. Caspar was indeed a timid soul and would almost take a beating to avoid any chance of incurring the wrath of anybody. Filing Bankruptcy would be a great way to keep within the spirit of Caspar Milquetoast and would ensure that you take a sound thrashing for your sins. (LOL). Of course, I would never file bankruptcy myself. I'd much rather see if I couldn't bankrupt them instead. Of course I'm not going to ever get that job done but I sure would try to get my licks in. So far I've had 172 successful bites at the apple in a row and more coming soon but still haven't been even remotely close to bankrupting any body and it is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to force anyone into bankruptcy but at least I can have fun shaking their timbers a little bit. (LOL)
Ha. I don't go back as far as the 1930's but my paren't used to reference Casper Milquetoast all the time. Him and Mary Wallflower. LOL. Anyway, I don't really see filling BK as a way of folding due to the creditor's pressure or scare tactics. In my eyes it's more like a subtle FOAD to the creditors (fair or not on our part) while he just piggybacks on my credit rating until his is fully recovered. I don't like the idea of filling BK, but I also don't like the idea of throwing away good money after bad...know what I mean? The amount we're talking about is around $20,000 and it'd made a very helpful safety net for us and the kids. I'm just sayin'... I dunno what to do at this point.
Good! Then why would you want to pay them anything at all? That is really throwing good money after bad. Far more so than even filing BK. Either one will do nothing to help his credit and will actually make things worse rather than better. Bk is even worse in fact than a prison sentence in some ways. At least those who have served time don't have to be fearful of getting hit with a second sentence for failure to tell someone about it for the rest of their lives unless they went down for a sex offense. Then they do but other than that they can just go on and live normal lives if they choose to do so for the most part. Furthermore those who have served lengthy prison terms have the ability to file for SSI disability and get paid for the rest of their lives. Those who have filed BK must always admit that fact if requested to do so when filling out a loan application. Failure to do so can result in a prison sentence for lying to a creditor. They never escape that stigma. Furthermore, the fact of having filed BK will remain on their public records for the rest of their lives and far beyond. It will never be erased. Prison records are not a part of public records down at the court house so the fact of a felony record isn't available to most people unless they specifically request it from the proper sources and maybe not even then. There are millions of people out there who have served long prison records but that fact don't show up in most public records. Only available to police and government. So it can easily be said that a BK is worse than a prison sentence in some aspects. Credit reports are just the tip of the chilling iceberg. The amount we're talking about is around $20,000 and it'd made a very helpful safety net for us and the kids. I'm just sayin'... I dunno what to do at this point.[/quote]You are absolutely correct. Nice safety net for you and the kids. Invest that money wisely and it can become a huge resource at retirement time. Pay the past debts and you just blew it. Pay the past debts and hurt his credit reports even worse. In the alternative, learn about informal bankruptcy and instead of paying them or filing bk he gets rid of his past debts and maybe gets paid for doing it. Yes, it is far more difficult than formal bankruptcy but instead of $20K you might accidentally spend as much as 2K and get that back several times over. I know a man who started learning about informal bankruptcy back in 2001. He has taken 6 bites at the apple at the federal level and is among those 172 I spoke of earlier. He and his wife came through Oklahoma City a year or so ago and a local friend and I had supper with them at a local Petro truck stop. He was on his way to New Mexico to go to work for an aviation company. In the process I asked him how much money he had made using my methods. His reply was that he had made about $38K from all 6 of his lawsuits. He now has pristine credit as well. Has had for a long time. He has used both FDCPA and FCRA in just about all his lawsuits. FCRA is actually much stronger than FDCPA and is much easier to get large damage awards out of than FDCPA is. Just imagine this. Let's take the case of an imaginary debt collector whom we will call Holdum, Beatum and Howe has a placed an adverse listing against your husband which contains false information. Hubby disputes this listing and can prove that it contains false information. HBH has placed the listing on all 3 credit bureaus and those false reports have been there for a year. Each violation is $1k times 3 credit bureaus times 12 months. That's 36K in damages. Let's say you found out about it while shopping for a home which you liked so much that you bought it. Because of the adverse listing by HBH you had to pay 12 percent interest for 30 years but if it had not been for HBH you could have obtained the money for 6 percent. You bought a home that cost you $200K. What is the difference in interest over the next 30 years? That's more damages and those would be actual damages on top of the statutory $36K. That's available under FCRA but not under FDCPA. Let's use another possible scenario. Let's say that HBH contacts your hubby and demands payment. He demands validation and they don't comply but after a while turns it over to the lawfirm of Dewey Cheatum and Howe and they send him a demand letter. Hubby files a lawsuit against HBH for illegal continued collection activity. He also demands validation of DCH and they send him a phony debt validation on their letterhead which states Here is your debt validation. You owe us $20K. then they file a lawsuit. That's illegal continued collection activity as well. Then a process server comes to your door and serves him with a summons and complaint. More illegal continued collection activity. Hubby prepares his response and a certificate of mailing as well as a long list of admissions and files his response at the end of the allotted time. He files his response to the summons with the clerk of the court and sends the whole package to DCH. They file for summary judgment More illegal activity. He responds with an objection and they respond to that. More illegal collection activity. Once they failed to comply with his demand for validation anything they do becomes more and more illegal continued collection activity. Normally that would not be true since under normal conditions anything they prepare and file in court does not fall under the FDCPA but if they failed to properly respond to his demand for validation then anything they do after that is illegal continued collection activity. Each one can be worth a grand a copy and it starts with that all important demand for validation. Then he can get his filing fee back and can get paid for his time and trouble of having to become a private attorney general. Put FDCPA together with FDCPA and take them to federal court and you can bet your bottom dollar they will get a new religion real quick. Now then, which kind of bankruptcy is better, formal or informal? You tell me. Do you really want to pay them off with that $20K now or do you want to make it grow by leaps and bounds? You tell me.
