Hello All, Thanks immensely for this board and all the people that have provided so much information and given so much of their time! It is really appreciated by us newbies! I've been attempting to clean up my credit for a year now (alone) since I first attempted to refinance and found strange account balances and erroneous account on my report. Obviously I was denied. I was a bit stunned, so I pulled a tri-merged report and my scores were much different then what the lender provided me with (my report scores were higher then the ones the lender provided me with). At that time there was a balance on a tradeline from a creditor I had never dealt with. It was for 11,600 and was pulling my score down because of the percentages. The creditor was A.F.S.C.I. and I had never done business with them. I did some searching on the web - and found a lot of negative comments about them. The report I had pulled provided their address and an account number, and I wrote them and it came back "addressee unknown". I had also written the CRA's and the balance was changed to $0 after they did their validation. The date was old and their hadn't been any activity on that account in a few years, so I am assuming that A.F.S.C.I must have bought the account from some other creditor that I had once did business with. It's a positive account, so once they update the balance I just let it be. There are still actually 2 accounts from them - and I have no clue who they are. But they are both closed and positive - so I just leave them alone. This has long been paid up and is also positive at this time, so I thought my credit should be good. I've always paid all of my bills on time, with the exception of my student loan from many years ago. My wife however is a different story, and I have some late payments on joint accounts that I never use. Her credit was bad so I had opened a few accounts so she could have cards to use. She has a good job - but bad credit. She had a tough time getting cc so I'd do it in my name with her as an AU or Joint so she could have cards to use. I never used them so when the bills came in she just took them and paid them. It wasn't until running my first report that I saw the late payments (some for like five dollars!) So needless to say I've taken all those cards back and canceled them too. It was never a money problem, just her not being responsible I guess. Either way - like my brother tells me, it's my fault for not looking at the bills since I new she had credit problems from the start. So that is my penance, and I'll deal with that. It's not too bad. But there is these car payments that she was to make on a car that I co-signed for her - there's like 12 late payments - 2 x 90's, a few 60's and the rest 30's. The car is paid off as of last year - so now I just have to wait the 6 years for them to drop off. I've written the company, I've tried the good will, validation, everything - they just don't budge. But like I said, I'm willing to deal with it. It's paid off now anyway. I did have a lot of cc and a lot of cl and I closed all but 3 or 4 of them (wrongly - I didn't know better) because I thought just having the available credit was hurting my score. Even though most of the balances were $0, I closed them off. This really tanked my scores, and I was stunned (too bad I hadn't look for this and other boards earlier!). I used to pay more than the minimum, but the interest charges were so high, I wasn't making a dent. Finally, I decide just to put a plan in place and pay everyone off. I was tired of these companies getting rich off of me. The remaining cc had balances of $12K, 10K, 8K, 16K and I also have a $4K overdraft line - and all of them were maxed out. So I've spent this year paying off all those cc and my plan was to have them paid off by November 2003. Some of these last 4 I had closed also (while they still had huge balances) because I noticed the interest rates hovered around 24.9% - though when I got the cards they were closer to 12%. I got pissed and closed all but 1 card with a 10K cl, and I kept a gas card with a $500 cl, and my overdraft account. I am happy to state that as of this month - I have paid off all cc's and was looking forward to being debt free - with the exception of our mortgage. I was planning on refinancing my home this month, and maybe buy myself a new car. I've met all my goals that I set to pay everything off. I was sort of looking forward to running my report and seeing that "outstanding revolving balances" at $0. Then I got blind sided. On this last cc, which has been closed for about 3 or 4 years, there was a balance of 1,800 and a late payment from back in 1999 on the acct. I disputed it because I know I never paid it late. Anyway - this past week, I ran my Experian report, it says they validate 10/2003, so the late payment remains --- and the balance as of 10/2003 is $18,000!!! Obviously a typo on their part. The balance should be $0, though I can understand that they hadn't received my last payment of $1,800 which I only sent them last week. So I can understand it still being $1,800 - but not $18,000!!! The cl on the account is only $8,000! I called Experian, and they said I have to dispute it again - which they told me they have 30 days to resolve. I called the creditor, and they said they didn't report that number to Experian, and they will send me a letter stating the actual balance, and I can use that to send to Experian. I also obviously have my last statement, which shows the balance. And I can print my online banking statement which even shows my last payment of 1,800 which pays the balance off. I also know that this is a typo on one of their part - so I know they'll have it corrected in 30 days. I'm just totally frustrated with this whole process. It seems very strange to me that the very same month where I should have $0 balances - I now "coincidentally" have this $18K mistake! And since I closed all my accounts (stupid I know now), I only kept one card open and the overdraft account. So this $18K they put on my report is OVER my total available credit - so it shows that I have over 100% percent utilization!!! Again, I know it'll get fixed in the 30 day period they have - but it bothers me to no end - and it's frustrating as %$*@ that I have to deal with this. I've played by their rules - and it's unfair that they can do this, be rude about it, and all I can do is wait. Suppose they don't even investigate? Suppose they tell me that it's "frivolous" since they just did a dispute on the same account this month? No doubt I can send them more information and prove it - but why should I have to? Why couldn't I just call them and they say "oops, my bad" we'll take care of it right away. Suppose the rates go up and I have to wait to refinance? I can't buy my car until this gets fixed because of the utilization? It sucks and it just pisses me off. I'm sorry this is so long, but I felt like the people here are the only ones who can understand what I am talking about - and I really had to get it out of my system. When I spoke to my wife about it you can tell that she's really not concerned about it. (which is why I guess she never worries about those late payments she makes on our accounts). I've also written my congressman and told him the story, and I copied the FTC on it also. (Both last week - the same day this all happened). I just needed to vent a bit. It just really pisses me off ... Thanks for listening ...
