Alright I have been lurking for quite awhile on this board, I was even around for the old board where we use to have a lot of problems with impersonators because there was no password log on. So I decided to stop hanging on the sidelines and start cleaning up my credit report. It was not as bad as it used to be about 9 years ago with about 7 charge offs. But in 98 and early 99 I ran into some financial problems and I had a lot of late payments on my accts (Student Loans, Capital One, Spiegel, Ford Motor Credit) and a Paid Collection Account for a Corporate American Express ( I could kick myself for messing up this American Express). And if anyone with Student Loans know, you have multiple listings for just one payment. At this point, I bought a house in Dec. 2000 with a FHA loan at 7% (yeah!!!, I never thought it could happen but I got encouragement from Momof3 posts and I was happy to see that she also got her house). After the house closed I got a Best Buy Charge with a $2000 limit, a Target card (measly $200 limit), and Kmart card ($300 limit) But I still cannot dig myself out of Subprime hell probably because of that paid collection and all of those late pays in 98 and early 99. So I just started disputing earlier this month. Experian immediately deleted the Amex Paid Collection. I also disputed the late pays on my Paid off Ford Motor Credit Account. It was loan for 61 months for $23,000. I had 5 - late pays of 60 days most recent one in 11/99. and 12 - late pays of 30 days most recent one in 7/2000. Well Experian deleted the whole tradeline. WTH!! So I don't if I should be mad or happy about the Ford Credit deletion. So the whole point of this post is to find out is it better to have a paid off auto loan on your account with these late payments (keeping in mind that I have a lot other late payments around this period on all of my accounts). Or to not have the Auto loan on it at all. With these 2 delections my CreditExpert score went down 2 points from 649 to 647. I would have thought with this Collection account deletion (my only one) that it would have went up but I am concerned that the removal on the autoloan (my only one) caused it to go down even though the autoloan had late payments on it. Any advice is appreciated, Thanks tlcampbe!
