Was it an addiction? I don't know. What I do know is that today kicks off my 2 year crusade to improve the credit I have and refrain from torturing my mouse and my reports with credit applications. To date, I've gone from a 547 to a 639. I went from a $200 Capital One card to a $5,900 Platinum Cap One, $4,000 Fleet Fusion card, $1,500 Gateway card, $1,500 GM card, $1,000 JC Penny card, $1,000 Spiegel card, and a $400 Target Card. Today, I closed the $1,500 GM card. Spiegel is on the chopping block, and the Gateway card will never be used again...but help my ratios. My plan is to stop applying for credit. Pay off all my bills (thanks Clark Howard) except my student loan (will be satisfied in 2009), grow my score to join the "700+ Club" and invest the savings. I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck! CardKid
Wow! This is my 100th post!!! To answer your question, I started with these negatives: 9 defaulted student loans 6 medical collection accounts 1 Charged off fitness membership (1996 - I moved and the bastards would not let me out of the contract). I consolidated the student loans into one payment. 2 paid defaulted loans still remain on all 3 bureaus. The medical collection accounts are gone. I paid them and Lex Law had them removed over a year ago. The fitness membership falls off in February of 2003). I'm still disputing it to no avail. All the credit cards are less than 1 year old except a closed $200 Capital One account (1 1/2 years old at time of closure). CardKid
Card Kid, I'm with you. I don't need to apply for another thing. I currently have Citibank Dividend Platinum $5000 Citibank Gold AA $11000 Amex Delta Gold $2000 Bank of America $3500 Capital One $2500 Mbna LOC $2500 Spiegel $800 Target $700 JcPenney $1500 Ethan Allen $2250 and a smattering of other retail cards. After assessing my financial situation, I've decided that enough is enough. I'm going to pay off my current debts over the next 2 years and use my cards for emergencies only. For a while it was a great high to see that approval, but now I'm ready to be debt free. Except for the student loans of course. I've never gone into default, but the balance is pretty high. I just pray I can hold on to my job and ride out the slow economy
What's the intererest rate on your student loan? When I consolidated, I refinanced the loan and allowed them to automatically deduct the payment from my checking account. By doing that, I received an additional 0.25% rate discount. My rate is 7.05%. I tried to get them to round down to an even 7%. They wouldn't budge. CardKid
I am now 15 days into my crusade (12/11/01) and am happy to report that I HAVE NOT APPLIED FOR ANYTHING!! However, Cap One did increase my limit to $6,200 (without an inquiry) and the Target Card limit increased by $100. And oh, the Gateway Card is up to $1700 without an inquiry and the balance is a BIG FAT $0. I reopened the GM Card without an inquiry with a $1,500 line to help my ratios and they hit me with some trailing interest crap. I could use a stick of gum or maybe a credit patch to ease my nerves. CardKid
Was your fitness club membership with AFS International? I have had dealings with them before. Bad BBB record. cariba
It was a club out of Delaware. I moved to GA and cancelled the contract over the phone days after I joined. I never used the facility. It will fall off soon. But, it's such an eyesore. CardKid
Cardkid, how did you get the Student loans off after you consolidated them? Did they just go away or did you dispute that they were even yours? I consolidated mine but they now just say paid collection on my student loans.
Most of the student loans were successfully removed by Lexington Law Firm (I no longer use their services). Two more were removed on my own. However, the more stubborn loans will take more time. I used the letters from LizardKing. I hope this helps. CardKid
