Hi there, I have just registered and I am very glad I found something like this forum. I have read through many of the posts and have read through the introduction threads and the pinned threads and am concentrating on being a good "newbie" for at least a few weeks while I decide what to do. I had a few questions which i could not locate by searching. But let me first explain my situation. About 7 years ago, I was involved in a major car accident my graduating year in college that led to various medical bills, etc, being physically out of commission and generally very unhappy and self-destructive (I was a passenger and was unconscious for many hours). Due to my immaturity and youth like many students, I had previously racked up about 8k in credit card debt (5 different creditors), along with a bit more in student loans. I focused on paying off my student loan and medical bills first throughout the years. Unfortunately, I could not continue to pay my credit card bills and they all were charged off and went to collections. The creditors were chase, citibank, discover, capital one, and a "structure" store card. After all the interest and such, the credit card debt spiraled by a lot.. I think somewhere around 13k. They are all due to drop off neat year because I pretty much stopped paying all of them at once . I became more responsible with my bills during that 7 year hell time, and fortunately I was able to purchase an old car by saving up and working hard, and I kept paying my cellphone bills , and I have good friends who I could live with without me being on the lease -- of course I always paid the rent to them on time and even paid extra to make up for the trouble. i paid off my student loans and other loans a few years ago. I am in the California region. The questions are thus: 1) I read on the internet that there is some kind of exception to the general rule that negative items drop off after 7 years if a loan amount is above 150,000 or you apply for a job making more than 70,000. Is this true? Given that the SOL has passed, and if it is true, should I go about trying to do a delete tradeline request to the collection agencies and pay off a percentage of it? 2) Should I ever expect to receive any kind of credit from these creditors ever again? Do they keep internal records that go beyond the credit report? or is the credit report what they generally use? Am I blacklisted? Could I be? Thank you for your kindness and expertise.
The exceptions aren't only if the loan that you are seeking is above the limits, but if the COMPANY typically issues loans, or hires employees with salaries above the limits. But, there really isn't a way to know for sure whether they company will ask for, or be approved to receive an exempted reports. There is also nothing preventing the CRA from nuking all data at 7 years, or even earlier. (Some CRA's - albeit smaller ones - cap the reporting period to 5 years; which coincidentally syncs with the document retention period of most companies). Some blacklist, some won't.
Hrm, so what do you think the best strategy would be if I want to take out a loan in the future that will be over 150,000? Should I go ahead and try and make a deal with the CA to get the items deleted in return for a percentage paymment?
It is not clear what effect having a negative item on such a report will have on your chances for a loan, if it is older than 7.5 years. It would presumably not affect FICO, and it would probably be past SOL, so it would likely be viewed as not affecting your financial strength. If it was being reviewed manually, and was an issue in approving a loan, it should be brought to your attention, and if it resulted in you being turned down, the lender would have an obligation to inform you of the reason. If credit information was being used in making a hiring decision, you have a right under federal law to a copy of any credit report used by the employer before they make any decision based on it.
Well, one of the premises to credit repair is that the misinformation which fills many people's credit reports are filled with inaccuracies. So does the 7 year dropping off rule have exceptions? You betcha. Dispute it as inaccurate, and it could very well come off the report. Chances are there is something on that listing which is inaccurate, so send a simple dispute and see what happens. The exceptions happen when someone takes specific steps to insure the accuracy of the report.
These exceptions have nothing to do with the traditional report. The exempted report is an entirely different report, which allows for them to provide more significant information about an applicant's long term credit history, by removing the seven year limitation if the economic benefit of the credit, or job is substantial enough to warrant it. And you can't send a dispute letter which says "I dispute everything on my credit report, please delete."; to get the EXEMPTED report in the first place, you need to apply for an exempted report qualifying account/job, they must provide you with the copy of the exempted report, then you must dispute the exempted report with the CRA. Which more than likely, will send a response that the account that you are disputing doesn't appear on your credit file (since it doesn't appear on your traditional credit file).
