Hi, I am a newbie here and have done lots of reading today. This is the place I will be visiting for the next many months! I got my credit report today as well as my score, which is only 583. I have debt, but i'm always ontime. Besides my car loan I have a loan through my credit union $4,000 and One is a credit card with zero interest for a year %8,000. My biggest concerns are the collections I have..... 1. is from 2005 which was paid in full (1400) in 2005 to an apartment complex. It went into collections and I was never even notified of it until I got a call saying I owed that amount. 2. is from the same as above (duplicate) 3. is from Comcast for not returning the cable box....owe $500 this was from 9/2007 4. is from an apartment for $238 for not turning in a 30 day notice to move out on time....only a 20 day notice was given Where do I even begin to get these hopefully removed from my report? I am a single mother and looking to hopefully buy a house soon, but would like to get a higher score before doing so. Thanks a ton!! Sue
I am going to add that I have never gotten anything by mail from any of these collection agencies. Do I still go ahead and send them a validation letter? TIA!
Hi Sue & welcome! I am not an expert but have some experience in credit repair. So here goes, First off which credit report and score did you get? You prob need to get all 3 credit reports (Experian, Equifax & Transunion) Your allowed a free one every year. You can get these from www.annualcreditreport.com Also anytime you are denied credit you are also allowed a free copy of whichever report the creditor ppulled. Once you have all 3 reports compare them side to side and see how the accounts you listed are reporting. You may want to consider disputing old names and addresses first, when I did that some of the old baddies fell off with the old name. Give an entire 35 days to allow the names & addys disputes to be processed and for you to receive the results. Once that is done you are ready to tackle the baddies. The first two are the same and it has been paid? Check to see how it is reporting. Is it reporting as paid? Post how those two are reporting with personal info removed so that the forum can see it and give ideas on the best approach. 3 & 4, what year did these occur? Since they can be agruably owed you need to be more careful. You may want to see what the statute of limitations is for your state. That is the period of time in which you can be most likely sued and have a possible judgment placed againest you. Again post how these are reporting with personal info removed and ask what kind of violations are seen. Credit repair is a time consuming & often frustrating process. But the benefits are worth it. Good luck! Tegleg
Thank you for your response. I ordered my free report from Equifax and purchased my score from their site as well. What do you mean by dispute old addresses and names? TIA 1 shows as.... FEDERATED COLL BUREAU INC Agency Address: PO Box 1484 Norcross, GA 300911484 (770) 446-6017 Date Reported: 03/2008 Date Assigned: 09/2004 Creditor Classification: Rental/Leasing Creditor Name: ********** Account Number: ****** Account Owner: Individual Account. Original Amount Owned: $1,442 Date of 1 st Delinquency: 06/2004 Balance Date: 03/2008 Balance Owned: $0 Last Payment Date: 21/02/2005 Status Date: 03/2008 Status: P - Paid Comments: N/A 2 (duplicate) shows as FEDERATED COLL BUREAU INC Agency Address: PO Box 1484 Norcross, GA 300911484 (770) 446-6017 Date Reported: 04/2005 Date Assigned: 09/2004 Creditor Classification: Creditor Name: ARCHSTONE MEMORIAL HEIGHTS Account Number: ****** Account Owner: Individual Account. Original Amount Owned: $1,442 Date of 1 st Delinquency: 06/2004 Balance Date: 04/2005 Balance Owned: $0 Last Payment Date: 21/02/2005 Status Date: 04/2005 Status: P - Paid Comments: N/A 3 shows as CREDIT MANAGEMENT Agency Address: 17070 Dallas Pkwy Dallas, TX 752481950 Date Reported: 03/2008 Date Assigned: 11/2007 Creditor Classification: Cable/Cellular Creditor Name: COMCAST HOUSTON Account Number:***** Account Owner: Individual Account. Original Amount Owned: $668 Date of 1 st Delinquency: 09/2007 Balance Date: 03/2008 Balance Owned: $541 Last Payment Date: N/A Status Date: 03/2008 Status: D - Unpaid Comments: N/A and 4 shows as RESIDENT DATA, LLC Agency Address: 12770 Coit Rd # 1000 Dallas, TX 752511336 (972) 952-1480 Date Reported: 03/2008 Date Assigned: 12/2007 Creditor Classification: Rental/Leasing Creditor Name: ******* Account Number: ******* Account Owner: Individual Account. Original Amount Owned: $238 Date of 1 st Delinquency: 09/2007 Balance Date: 03/2008 Balance Owned: $238 Last Payment Date: N/A Status Date: 03/2008 Status: D - Unpaid Comments: N/A Thanks again.....help is greatly appreciated SUE
No prob =D Ok, go to the link for the annual credit report & get your Experian & Transunion report & either print them off or have them mailed to you. You need to see all 3 reports and see if these baddies are reporting the same on all 3. They may not all be present on each report or you may find others that may only be present on the 2 reports you don't have. Thats why you need to check all 3 because they can greatly vary. When you review your credit reports you will see all the names and addresses that have been associated with your credit report. Some may be valid some may not be correct at all. When I did mine I sent a copy of my DL to the CRA (credit reporting agency) and asked for all variations of my name & addy (I listed them all, including mispelled ones, my maiden and previous married name) to be removed as they could create a portal for identity theft. Equifax removed them all, Transunion removed them all + some baddies and Experian refused to remove any. Experian is the devil! Give the name & addy disputes a full 35 days to get fully processed. Other than that for 1: Look for anything reporting incorrectly, are any of the dates wrong? Is the payment date wrong? It shows as paid with a 0 balance as it should. What you need to do is nitpick this one, find some flaw you can dispute with. Then once you have found something you can honestly dispute "No knowledge of this account." For example: Say the date it was paid was not 02/21/2005. Say you paid it 01/05/2005 instead. Then you could say you have no knowledge of paying a account 02/21/2005. For #2 Dispute it as a duplicate account. Hopefully it will go away. For 3 & 4 they sound both like CA's, find a flaw & dispute with the CRA's no knowledge, then if they verify it (verify meaning that they send you a result stating no change) then send a DV to the CA and follow that route. You may want to get your actual FICO scores, these are the scores that really count, any others we call FAKO's. I may be just guessing but I'm betting your FICO's may be better than you think. But FICO's can be a bit pricey, even with a % off. You definitly need to get your scores as high as you can before housebuying. If you can, while doing the tedious disputes work on paying your balances down, esp the credit card, this will lower your utilization and in the process help increase your scores. Hopefully the higher ups will chime in if they see anything I have left out. I wish you much luck, I have been in your shoes and know how you feel. Oh and be sure to send all disputes CMRRR and keep copies of everything you send and the green cards you get back as proof the letter was delivered and signed for. That way you have a papertrail. Tegleg
Our method is to dispute the names and addresses along with the derogatory accounts. The reason being is two fold: 1) the credit reporting agencies delete the personal info usually right off the bat (except Experian) so it accomplishes the same thing without waiting; and, 2) if you wait just on the personal information an old furnisher of information may re-report the personal information before the second series of re-investigations as to actual account tradelines is completed. Not saying one method is better than the other rather, only what we do.
