Hi all...a little background on myself, I am 33 and starting the process of repairing my credit. I had impeccable credit about 5 years ago (owned house, student loans paid off, been using cred cards for most purchases since I was 18 to build credit, etc) then I had an unfortunate incident happen in my personal life (went from double earning household to a single and wage garnishments of around 34%) which started my arduous spiral into the 4th percentile of FICO scores. Basically gave up, cut up all CC's, and been scraping buy ever since with no real way to pay on anything even if I wanted to. Well it's time to get all this taken care of. I found out from a girl I have been dating that I had pending litigation in a civil matter (she pulled a background check on me before our first date lol). I checked the website and yep, sure enough CACH LLC had filed suit and served 3 subpoenas, but were unable to find me and dismissed suit last month (before I even found out). I am sure they will be back and it really gave me the motivation to get all this wrapped up. I pulled reports from the big 3, opted out, am sending written address deletion request tomorrow, and have been reading nonstop. I have listed below the negative items on the reports. Any sage advice would be greatly appreciated. 1. I have 5 closed accounts that I paid in full and marked as such, but were in collections and still listed as negative on reports. Only one comes off in the next 4 years. Is there anything I can do about these to get them removed? 2. One open credit card account in collections with CACH with 5,000 balance. This is the one I mentioned above, that was brought to litigation but subpoena was not served and dismissed. SOL is still 2 years away and I am sure they will be coming back. Any advice on how to play this one or what steps I should at least start with? 3. One open account with Carson Smithfield for an Advanta card with 5,200 balance. They call me nonstop, cell, work, bosses cell, etc and is driving me nuts. I just ignore but I need to do something. SOL is about 1.5 years away and I have never even talked to them. I am thinking about sending DV and doing 1-2 punch for this one....good idea or other suggestions? From what I have read in my research, I really don't think they will try to sue but I could definitely be wrong. 4. Utility collection only a few months old w/ balance of 253. Pfd on this one or should I try something else? 5. Car loan on my ex's car that was in my name. She took vehicle but immediately stop making payments. I tried to keep up with them but finally had to default with 850 left on balance. Listed as a charge off. Anything I can on this one? 6. 2 smaller accounts both with collections, one with balance of 72 and the other with a balance of 140. SOL on both is about 3 years. Should I send a DV for these and maybe dispute with CRA, then offer PFD if that doesn't work? Or is there a better route to take for smaller accounts like this? I apologize for the essay, but it's hard to summarize all of my poor decisions in a short post. I appreciate any feedback anyone is willing to take the time to give.
It's much harder getting removal once the account is paid. Are they medical? Have you ever sent a debt validation letter to this CA? Your boss? Has he talked to them? Have they left HIM VM's? § 805. Communication in connection with debt collection [15 USC 1692c] (b) COMMUNICATION WITH THIRD PARTIES. Except as provided in section 804, without the prior consent of the consumer given directly to the debt collector, or the express permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, or as reasonably necessary to effectuate a postjudgment judicial remedy, a debt collector may not communicate, in connection with the collection of any debt, with any person other than a consumer, his attorney, a consumer reporting agency if otherwise permitted by law, the creditor, the attorney of the creditor, or the attorney of the debt collector. Since they've apparently located you, sending a DVL, and then disputing the account with the CRAs is a good start. CA's sadly have sued for much less, so don't count on it just because it's only 1,500. Call the OC, ask the to recall the debt as it's likely just assigned, ask if you PIF for them to recall the debt and have the CA delete. It was in your name only and your ex took it? Do you mean you have 3 more years before the SOL expires? Any possible way of working the with OC's on these? What type of collections are they? You could of PFDs, but those typically work on higher balance accounts. Welcome to the board, and ask away!
One was for a $20 copay for an apparent office visit for my daughter. Her mom has a tendency to tell the Dr. office "just send the bill through the mail" because my kid is on my insurance so they send the bills to me and have had quite a few show up that I didn't even know about. This one must have gotten lost, as I surely would have paid the $20 bill before it went to collections. The other four are various debts, all under $400 (Kohls CC, Verizon for ex's phone that she was apparently not paying the bill on, Comcast, and one for a local ISP). I have been reading for a while now and haven't really found any info for a good way to approach these as they are paid, but figured I would ask anyway. No, as of right now I have not done anything with any account. I did not want to rush anything before I did alot of research felt that I had at least a fair amount of knowledge on the entire credit repair process. I am definitely concerned that any type of contact with this one will just be inviting the litigation to reopen immediately, but I also think that may be inevitable regardless of what I do. They will have my new address available on my CR now as well. I would rather be proactive than reactive I would imagine. Yes, we are a small engineering company so I just told our secretary to send them to my VM whenever they called. I am not sure how they ended up speaking with my boss (the owner), but he called me from Florida a few weeks ago and relayed that a lawyer had called him and left a number to reach them. I don't think any VM was left. With the whole Advanta mess, this one might be really hard to validate and I would be willing to take the chance making contact with them I believe. Or I could wait until it gets closer to the SOL I guess.....the last letter they sent was a settlement for about 2,000 (much less than they were originally offering). Thanks. I will give this a try. Loan was in my name only, but I foolishly put her on the registration so she could take care of the yearly registration, insurance, etc. Honestly, the last thing I wanted was to default on this one and I paid the installments for a good year and a half after she was gone. It just got to the point where I couldn't do it. I called bank and gave them all her info and told them to go get car and take it back, but it's just listed as a charge off and not a repo so I don't know if that happened or not. Yes, I have 3 years before they expire so another 5 years before they would be gone for good. I have no problem paying them, but I want to try everything I can to get the negative mark off CR. One is for an insurance policy for $150 and one is for a local internet provider for $72. I am not sure if the have been sold or assigned to the CA, so working with OC may be a option. Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it.
The medical debt, I would try talking with the original creditor on. I would personally argue that if they are billing YOUR insurance, they have an obligation to ensure that YOU are constructively notified of the charges BEFORE billing. Otherwise, you have never contractually agreed to the charge. A contract is only a contract when it is agreed upon by both parties, if they've never told you about the bill being incurred, before it is billed, you never agreed. Now, would you tell the Dr. "No, my child is not allowed to get medical treatment, they're not worth $20." no, but unless you know about the charges, you can't consent to the charges. There's also HIPPA approaches to collections for medical debts. Ex's bills, I would dispute to the DF whether or not they are YOUR account. The alleged lawyer, I would draft a suit. Hint: I had one where they called a neighbor for 'location information' and had the neighbor put a note in the mailbox "jam237, please call _________ at DSDA at xxx-xxx-xxxx, immediately. ___________ at DSDA needs to hear from you soon." Any unauthorized third party communication is illegal. The only exception is if they have gone to court, have a garnishment order, and need to talk with your boss or HR to give them the garnishment order.
