My Credit Story, a little long :o)

Ok well I have been lurking on this board for a while now and gathering information for my battle to fix my credit. Thanks to everyone who posts on here. This place is filled with great info and I feel much more empowered now, but have lots to learn.

I'll be up front, I made alot of mistakes when I was in college and had an anarchistic mentality about credit. I didn't believe in the credit system then and I don't believe in it now. I have gotten to that age now though that my credit rating is important especially with my gf being in the high 700's.

Anyway so I recently decided to start getting my credit in order. I defaulted on about $20,000 in school loans and also had some other bills that I never paid. About 6 mos ago I finished rehabbing my school loans and then consolidated them with Sallie.

Recently when checking my credit reports just to get an idea as to what was on there any more ( I haden't seem my Experian or TU in my entire life). I noticed I still have a ton of school loan late pays and charge-offs. Plus alot of old debts that had gone to collections and so on and so on. My scores on all fronts are in the low 600's or high 590's. Actually not too bad considering all the damage done all these years.

I read on creditnet that all my old tradelines from the school loans should be removed since my loan was rehabbed. I have 6 different stafford loans that were sold off by uni pac and now show as being late 180 days multiple times I5 etc etc for 6 different loans. Aye chihuahua!!! (slap to the forehead)

So that's battle number one. Getting all those damn loan tradelines that are killing me removed. Of course once they remove them the age of my credit will go down and I'll probably end up in the mid 400's.... bastards.

Anyway so from reading Marci's posts and looking around in other parts of the web I realized I should call the Ombudsman but then someone said talk to the creditor to ask them to remove first and foremost. So I contacted Unipac and talked to a nice guy there that told me if I send in the rehab letter they will send out retraction letters. I will have him fax a copy to me. I never received my rehab letter from guarantor so I'm getting a copy sent to me and should be here in a few days, so I'll let you know how that goes.

Also I have other collections with Gulf State, NCO, Allied Interstate, Surrety Acceptance. Yeah lucky me!

My reports are mix and match some accounts show on one and not on another.

Also I reciently received a letter from Allied Interstate for a debt that I believe is over the SOL or very close to it. It's a debt that doesn't even show on my credit reports any more. It's for over $800 but it has to be around 6+ years old now. It was one of those "we found you" now you have to pay us and asks me to reply in 30 days etc for validation.

I recently (pre-creditnet) paid one debt on a utility bill from like 3 years ago and I kind of regret it now because it may turn into a paid collection. I did sent the payment with one stipulation and I don't know if I have a legal leg to stand on with this.

When I was talking to a rep at the utility company she made a brief mention that "if I you did not received your final bill then" ....she stopped and didn't say anything else, she realized she was giving too much info. So I said " I am now declaring that I did not receive my final bill and would like to have it sent to me now". I hope she was going to say that I legally could pay the bill now. So that's what I did and I sent a letter saying that because I didn't receive my final bill that this should have never gone to collections and that I am paying the final bill now.

Anyone know if this works? I didn't state any legal information from the FCRA or FDCRA. Anyway so what's done is done.

About 10 days ago I did online validation with experian for that utility bill as "paid prior to going to collections" plus the gulf state item as not mine.

I sent out 4 validations a couple days ago using the letter from faircreditmovement, but I didn't make any changes to it except the necessary stuff. One to Allied, Gulf, Surrety (another old utility), and NCO. I did the best that I could with the addresses and got the info off of the credit reports and other CA websites. Some I sent to corporate headquarters because I didn't want to send to PO boxes which is what they gave the CRA when doing inquiries.

So now I wait. I haven't gotten new copies of my credit reports yet so I don't know if they show in dispute, but I will do that in the next couple weeks.

The 4 letters I sent were for the items that I have that are still showing as not paid or are charge offs. I still have one other paid collection that I want to have removed. Plus some inquiries.

Any advice from the veterans as to issues with my strategy. Will it cause any problems if I validate with the CA while I am validating with CRA?

Thanks again to everyone on Creditnet!

 

Good point. I'll keep that in mind!

 

My Credit Story Part II Kickin Butt

Just to let you all know how I'm doing with my credit battle so far. I think things are going extremely well. My points started out with an Eloan of 613, Transunion of 591. I was suprised I did that well, frankly.

There were 8 collections on each report. A pot pourri of credit destruction from my punk rock stupidity days (I can hear myself screaming "screw the whole system man!"). Ahh irresponsibility...sigh.

5 collections on each report were old Unipac tradelines from student loans in the 20k range total. I had defaulted and those loans were sold to the guarantor and then I rehabbed them once the gubment told me they'de start taking my taxes. That pretty much convinced me to deal with them.

But the original tradelines with Unipac were horrible cuz I never made a single payment in like 7 years. There was like 9 180 days late etc etc for each tradeline and there were 5 seperate tradelines per report. Ouch!

I felt the original tradelines should be deleted and that deleting the original tradelines was the spirit of the rehab act. I posted a complaint on PFB. A few days later I was contacted by Unipacs CSR. He wasn't easily swayed and he asked me to give him Pam Moran's phone number. I gave him the general number for the ombudsman. That was the end of that.

A few days later the ombudsman returned my initial call. I successfully convinced the Ombudsman to take up my case. The case worker tried to convince me at first that there wasn't anything I could do about the original tradeline. I told her about what Pam Moran had said (well according to Marci on this board anyway, thanks Marci!). She warmed up to the idea of calling Unipac and negotiating with them. A really sweet lady, that reminds me I gotta send her a card, she did a great job. Anyway a few weeks later we touched base and she said "success!" "you'll be receiving a letter from them saying all debts listed as paid in full never late for all CRA's", booyaa! A couple weeks later the letter came and all 5 tradelines have been changed to paid and never late. I verified a few weeks later on Exp and TU and tradelines are completely removed from EQ now because I had disputed them.

On each report there was a mix and match of 3 additional collections besides the student loan stuff. Some accounts listed on one but not another from a bunch of utility company accounts I bailed on. Gulf State, NCO FIN SYS, NCO TULSA, and Surrety Acceptance all represented. They were paid collections and chargeoff accounts.

I disputed them all online with EXP in increments of 2 or 3 accounts. I did the same with TU and mailed in disputes to EQ.

At the same time I have sent validation letters CRRR on all 4 companies waited 30 days and sent estoppels as well. NCO FIN SYS was the only one to respond and they just said they had no record of my account. Those entries were removed in disputes.

So far I have gotten EXP and EQ down to one paid collection for $54 from Surrety. TU Has the same $54 one plus another paid collection for $131 with NCO TUL. So out of a total of 24 negative entries for all 3 CRA's I have turned 10 of those into positive closed accounts and had a total of 10 deleted, 5 of which may come back as paid in full never late closed accounts.

All of this was done just using the disputes with CRA's method online and with their enclosed dispute form. I haven't tried disputing with the CRA's using the Validation letters sent CRRR to the CA's yet but may try that for Surrety.

Operation Build Credit....

I needed to start building credit to really get my credit on the right track. I had no credit listings in good standing except my rehabbed student loans which show like 45k in debt (after getting bent over on collection fees and compounded interest which drove my debt from $28k to 40k). No other positives.

I was excepted for a Cap One Gold Card and then got Amex charge not credit, also got a target guest and asked my girlfriend to let me be added as authorized user for a $7k and a 10k accounts that we use frequently but never actually carry a balance on. So i have like 7 revolving accounts now plus the school loan consolidation accounts, all show as never paid late.

My most recent scores are Eloan 693 and TU 650 but TU will be going up soon because some changes have not yet effected the TU score yet. They told me that when I called today.

I am entering my final phase. I'll be taking on Surrety head on with nutcase letters and calling them to ask them to remove, plus sending disputes with validation letters and estoppels. They have a listing on each report so I have to get that one off.

Any suggestions on how to get the $54 paid collection off? Is the Nutcase most effective?

Anyway I'll let you know where I am at in a couple months.

 

Re: My Credit Story Part II Kickin Butt

Thanks everyone. I'm going into nutcase mode for the final and most vicious of my phases. For a $54 paid collection we'll see how quickly they buckle. Nutcases being sent today!

 

Re: My Credit Story Part II Kickin Butt

Marci you have been a huge help in all this! I didn't even know I could clean out those original tradelines until I read it here in your posts. Better yet they have been turned positive which helps me maintain my history as well. This board has been the answer to my credit prayers that's for sure. I am already helping friends clean up their credit now too. We gotta share the love!