Hi All, Due to a deteriating financial situation, I was forced to file Chapter 7 BK in May. My Discharge came last month. I checked out My FICO today along with equifax and my score is 571. Any ideas if this is a good starting score for rebuilding?
Congratulations on your discharge...I have been there recently myself and I hope you are staying positive. Any place is a good place to start rebuilding - there's a LOT of great information on this board including NanaC's invaluable threat about CC approvals post BK - do a search by her user name and you'll find it. First thing to do is pull all of your reports from the 3 bureaus (do this directly, not through PG so you can dispute online). Look over each of the reports carefully and dispute any inaccurate information you find on them. Wait until those disputes are clear, and see if it increases your score at all. Then review NanaCs list and start creating a plan of action for applying for new credit cards. You may have to start with secured cards at first, but after 6 months to a year of good payment history, it shouldn't be too difficult to move into a low CL unsecured card. You may also want to ask a significant other to make you an authorized user on their credit card accounts - even if they don't give you a card to use the positive payment history will be reported on your CR and will help boost your score. Lastly, as you open accounts remember to not use more than 30% MAX of your available credit EVER - that will drop your scores way down. As an example, I just had a BK 7 discharged in July and my score is 606. My DH, who has only 2 30 day lates ever on any accounts (almost 18 monjths ago), and who has perfect payment on houses, cars, etc, has a score of 630 due to high utilization. Go figure. Anyway, best of luck to you in your fresh start. Poochie
