Howdy, I am really starting to get pissed off with this whole credit process. Two years ago, I must have had something like 1 judgment which I satisfied back in 1995, about four unpaid collections and a few slow pays. To this date 12/01/00, I have that damn judgment for $300 which will fall off on September of 2001, about 4 inquries and I have these awful subprime offer credit cards--Providian, Capital one, FNCC, FCNB and the worst of all, AFCA. I have had each one for a period of a year and a half, FCNB being the oldest at 2 years this January. So anyway, I am never late with my payments and have been unsecured with Fcnb since April, have since acquired a Victoria's Secret card, a Target card and a chadwick's card. I was told that if I established more credit, lenders would find it easier to consider my loan or credit applications--this advice from a bank. Well, here I sit, making payments monthly and paying twenty to thirty percent of my balance each month and guess what, Dell says no to a pc, Mervyns says no to a charge card, and I don't even go there with Nextcard. My income has improved. I rent and my rent is ridiculously low because I have known my landlord all my life and my sallary is 42k with 2 dependents other than myself. What the Hell do these people want? It has disgusted me to the point where I no longer pay the thirty percent, but ten to fifteen because I do not see the use for paying large amounts of money to show that I will be a good credit risk only to be denied at every turn. Funny thing happened. I have this one collection because I wrote a check, had close my account and the damn thing bounced before I could get to the supermarket and clear it up. It went right to collections, but dopy me paid the corperate office of the supermarket. After about two months, the collection company realized that I had paid the amount, but I was shy something like $1.20. Instead of letting me pay the amount and listing it as paid or deleting the thing, I was informed they do not delete negative information and because I owe $1.20 (that is one dollar and twenty cents) they are charging interest and a bounced check charge and a host of other eroneous charges. I wanted to dispute this with Transunion, but alas, I no longer have the credit report and you know these credit bureaus refuse to have numbers where you can speak to a live person. I also need to have this disputed with Equifax but don't remember that number. Is there any help for me or am I just SOL (@!#$ outa luck)
Transunion 1-800-916-8800 PO Box 2000 Chester, PA 19022-2000 You can view a free copy of your report at Worthknowing.Com. Some of the folks here have had problems with the accuracy of the report generated at this site, but it is free and you can view your report on line. I used the information from Worthknowing to dispute my TU report with no problem. Once you look over your report, draft a dispute to TU. Here are some sites that have sample dispute letters: http://www.primenet.com/~kielsky/credit/credit.html http://www.americanloansearch.com/info-creditrepair4.htm You definitely should check out the Carreon and Associates site, too. They have tons of information on credit and credit repair.
As a matter of fact Check out the Carreon and Associates site before you do anything else!http://www.carreonandassociates.com/resources.htm Good luck!
RE: As a matter of fact I don't know if I mentioned this, but I disputed my prior paid and unpaid collections and had them removed. The last time I viewed my credit report, which was in June, the only negative items I had were the inqueries and the satisfied judgment. and that supermarket check? The original amount that I wrote the stupid thing was for $57 (fifty seven) dollars and change!
Confused -- Sorry to sound like a p**ck, but that's how it is with everything distilled down to a number (your score). It sucks when you are generally a responsible person, but you've got the "red flags" (judgement, collections, etc), and unfortunately, people with those behaviors tend to repeat them... that's why the scores come out the way that they do. The moral of the story is... PAY ATTENTION to your credit- pay bills early (at least 10-12 days before due date, better yet pay 'em the day you get 'em), keep close tabs on your limits, basically treat your good credit carefully. It comes in handy when you do need it. The good thing is that for major loans (home, car), you should have no problems. If you can do it, pay your cards off every month (don't charge more than you make, I know harder than it sounds)... that way you don't pay anyone interest.
Yeah, if anyone else is reading this, the thing we've all learned is one screwup is all it takes, and it takes a long of time , hard work, sometimes luck, to clean up your reports!! Read the boards, write some disputes, hope it works out (disputing).
