Last August, I went 60 days late on my ford escort lease. I owed late fees plus repo fees plus their loss on the resale. it came to 5K. I made an initial arrangement to pay 500 and then agreed to $205 a month for 6 months with balance payable at end. It's now been 6 months. I made month 7 payment and they said I could keep going on this route. I looked at my CR and it BLEW me away. 4 days after my repo they marked my CR. They kept the balance owed as 19K on ALL THREE reports. Now I check my report again a YEAR later and the balances are still 19K. My question is this: IF they mark my CR 4 days after the repo as derog, then don't mark anything else, should I stop paying the debt and demand cancellation of the debt and deletion of the CR entry or what? I'm so angry. I want to call my lawyer and see what he says but he thinks I'm in no credit trouble. I have the money in October to pay the balance off on the car and the rep at ford said once it's paid off it'll be marked as paid in full on my CR. at this point, I want to sue them, my debt load WITH the car debt is only 9K and on my CR it's showing 14K-19K over that amount, thus REALLY dropping my score. I have been declined credit recently so should I just sue these guys? Please help me! SD
Sometimes when you make payment arrangements with a creditor, they may keep posting the original debt as is until you fulfill the terms of the settlement. This is the only explaination I can think of and I don't know if it's completely legal for them to do so but I know something similar happened to me when I settled with a few creditors. Do you have a written agreement with Ford concerning this settlement plan? If so, I'd double check to make sure I completed my part of the deal and then follow through with Ford. If they don't change it at that point, then I'd start getting more aggressive. However, if you don't have a written agreement, you may be out of luck here.
What is really dropping your score is the repo period. You have no damages. You're lucky they worked something out instead of just filing a lawsuit.
Breeze- I thought this was a 'legal-only' board. I ask anyone to find anything I wrote that is blatantly illegal. I responded to a post where the OP committed FRAUD! Tell me that by helping that person, this board wasn't diminished. I have a ligitimate problem, and asked for some advise. So I got pissed at a poster for obviously ****ing the system. Who here promotes illegal credit repair? I know the majority don't. I'm really astonished that this is a 'good ole boys' club so to speak. God forbid anyone have a backbone and stand up to fraud. But, if no one wants to respond, so be it. MSN Money and Fool.Com will have some insight. SD - ex-creditnetter PS - I've never spammed or trolled anyone except that fraud person, so your comments are completely unwarranted.
I wasn't trying to be mean to you, I was explaining. When you condemn people who have asked for help, nobody knows whether they will be next if you don't like what they said. As I was. But I really don't care. It is not a good ole boy's club, but it is definitely not MSN or TMF. Thank God. Nobody needs what they dish out. We don't run people off, you included. I think keepmine was gracious enough to offer an answer.
Calm down SDboy. There is no need to get angry and leave the board. Now, have you called Ford Credit and asked them about the reporting? I would nicely explain what is going on and then ask when it will be reported accurately to the Credit Reporting agencies. Get names and try to get that person to send you a fax stating that your reporting will change. Regardless, that repo is killing your score and will continue to do so. Your best bet is to just pay off the settlement, get Ford to report a little nicer in terms of how much you owe and then wait a while a start trying to dispute it off.
Majority of previous posts are accurate. Repo is a score killer. Your debt load on a secured installment transaction (lease or car loan) doesn't factor into your total revolving balances. You aren't out anything - you can't get anything. Pay it off, ask nicely for them to remove all derrogs (I would strongly advise getting that agreement in writing before you pay them another dime ... I think it's within reason to ask: "Ford Credit hasn't updated my credit records since we started this transaction, so I want to be clear about what will happen when this is all paid and finished ... would you be so kind to send / fax me a letter on your letterhead indicating ..." Since you're paying (or will have paid) 100% of what they're asking, you should get out of this with zero derog. on your report. Don't accept anything less. -mj
