I have read several posts from people who have filed BK7 as recently as the end of 2002. When these people list their scores they are higher than mine are. I am happy for them but it frustrates me to no end. I decided at the end of 2002 not to file BK7 because I felt my income situation was changing in 2003 and I could work out payment plans with my CC's etc to actually get my debt paid. Unfortunately before I could make all of the arrangements two of the CC's charged off. Sorry everyone I just felt the need to vent. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been more helpful in the long run to file BK, but I keep continuing to plug away. All of my CC's are reporting paying as agreed now except for the CO's. The scores just frustrate me!
I would say that, if you cannot pay off all but your house and your car in at most five years, you should file. It would cost you far too much and leave your credit damaged for far too long otherwise. It's probably easier in the mid- to long-range to clean up your credit by paying things off, IF you work hard to get deletion of negatives in exchange for payment. But in the short run, yes, filing BK can raise scores if they are really bad to begin with. Yours would probably have gone up. Mine went down to around 550 when I filed C13 in April (note that 550 is higher than your scores), but they've recovered quite a bit already, and none of the reports are really correct yet. C13 4/2002 EQ 605 TU 621 EX 645
I actually have a plan in motion to pay off all of my cc's in 2-4 years with the exception of the charge offs which I don't know what I'm going to do about yet. With the ones I am paying, I hope to use the goodwill angle at some point to get late pays off. So really if I filed BK it would be mainly because of the CO's. Is this a good enough reason? I figure I should hopefully see my scores increase each month as my late pays get further and further away. (Right now they are all very recent) Anyway just looking for some input as to whether I'm on the right road or maybe should I backtrack and file BK.
Keep in mind the possibily one of OC's that have "charged off" your account may file a lawsuit to get a judgment. More and more CC companies are suing these days, and earlier and earlier. I've heard that Discover Card is among the quickest to sue. Apparently they can initiate a suit as early as 90 days after you last paid them. MBNA apparently sues through a CA fairly quickly too.
