Well, after soaking up my first few hours of the great knowledge here, I thought I'd take the opportunity to formally introduce my self. I'm Chris, an active-duty Marine, currently stationed in Ohio. I'm 27, and I've got a fairly limited history, but over the course of about 6 months in 2005 I managed to just about demolish my credit. My personal sob story, I got very addicted to online gambling and just about lost everything - but after 2 1/2 years, well I've still got my health and fortunately I have much better lifestyle and financial habits that I plan to keep. To my plus, I've got: Current Car Loan - Jan 2007, current - never late. Capital 1 - July 2007, current - never late. Salute/UTB CC - Oct. 2006, current - never late. This is what I've got, in order of amounts owed (or my naive perception of impact). Legal Item - Judgement - Eviction, $2,875 Chargeoff - First Premier CC, $406 Collection - Arrow Financial, $535 (FirstPremier CC, not reported as of 2/5/08) Collection - Anchor Receivable, $278 (Navy Federal CU Closed checking account) Collection - CBCS, $255 (OhioEdison, Electric Bill, Oct. 2005) Collection - Credit Protection Assoc., $102 (Cox Communications, Cable Bill, Oct. 2005) Ford Credit - 30 Days Late - Jul, Aug, Sept, Oct 2005 34 Credit Inquiries - Jan 2007 - Car Dealership shotgunned my Credit I've also got two funky things I'm not sure what to even start to do with - DP OF EDUC -Derogatory, $0 - Collections/Chargeoff US DEPT ED - Derogatory, $0 - Collections/Chargeoff I'm sure this is a double report of the (only) student loan I had before enlisting, but it was paid off in Feb. 2005 after going to collections (Paid off the collections agency..). I stopped school in December 2000 and never paid on the loan (f*ing recruiter..), shouldn't this be over its SOL anyhow? Some other questions - Since I'm in the military, we always maintain our 'Home of Record' as a permanent address. For me, it's Alabama. But we're allowed for tax purposes to claim either our HoR or state of current residency... how does this transfer in consumer law? Should I attempt maintain my Home of Record as my ONLY address to the CRAs so I'm not pentalized for changing addresses every 2 or 3 years? Should I immediately ask for SoL/Duplicate/Whatever for the Dept of Education items? How long will it take for all these inquiries to go away (is it 1 year?), or should I request they be removed immediately? So many thanks already to all of you brilliant and brave people. I just got married in August 2007, and she's in the process of first-time building her credit as I'm attempting to repair mine. Our ultimate goal is to be in a position that we can buy our first home in a year or two. I'm so excited to keep learning and get started!
Are you looking at reports directly from the credit reporting agencies, or are you looking at a trimerge (all 3 CRAs on one report)?
I'm looking at all three from one, but I pulled the entirity through Transunion. They do vary so far as who says what, mainly the Equifax over the other two. For instance, it doesn't show the Judgement at all and shows both Dept of Ed items as 'late 120 days' as opposed to being paid. Outside of that, they are fundamentally the same. Thanks!
Before you charge forward Soldier , order each of your reports directly from the bureaus. You can get them free from annualcreditreport.com (assuming you haven't gotten them in the last 12 months). Caveat - if you dispute from them they have 45 days as opposed to 30 days to respond. Alternatively, you can purchase them from each of the Big 3's sites. I always tell people that a 3 in 1 is like putting a round peg in a square hole. You are missing key pieces of info (like Date of First Delinquency - that's why you can't tell when those student loans should be gone). Also those "late 120 day" notations may not even be real, but some weird anomaly that your trimerge company created. Trust me, when you see your individual reports you will be surprised, good or bad. BTW - trimerges are great while you are in repair mode to keep track of things.
Thanks, and good advice to get me started. When you say 45 days over 30, you are saying how long Dept of Education has? What about advice on the Judgement/Eviction? In your opinion am I better off just paying the court off on a regular basis ($200 a month or what not..) or trying to work a deal with the Rental Agency who actually filed - do they even have any grounds/control/anything so far as a settlement or DFP?
Greetings soldier! I'm Vic from Alabama as well, 22 y/o college student and my story is slightly similar to yours. My debt was mostly collections and charge offs from low limit credit cards. But like you, I managed to screw that up in about 6 months thinking not paying wouldn't affect me. Now I see the grim truth. Thanks for creating this thread, alot of your questions are the same as mine. I really would like to know about the time it takes for inquiries to fall off.... car dealers did me the same way!!!
If you can"t get them off through disputes, inquiries stay on your repot for two years. But the impact is lessened after six months.
No, if you get your free annual report, and start a dispute using it, then the agencies have 45 days to complete an investigation. If you buy your report, they only have 30 days to complete. Its weird I know, but nobody likes giving them an extra 15 days. Some of the advice would depend on state laws where the judgment was awarded. Any payments you work out would likely need to be made with whomever was awarded the judgment. But don't forget, interest is accruing. I've heard of people having good luck, settling for a lump sum amount.
