Hi everyone. I'm new. Trying to clean up my credit report after a nasty and bitter divorce. I'm a single mom and my main goal is to clean up my report so I can purchase a house for myself and my 2 kids. I'm upset about how bad I let my credit get but I'm ready to tackle it head on and hope for the best. Wow what a bundle of information on this site! I'm feeling overwhelmed and confused. I'm not sure where to start! I have my credit reports (got them from a mortgage broker who pulled my reports because I wanted to buy a house but didn't know my credit was THAT bad). I have a few questions on where to start. Bear with me, I've been reading this board, but have 2 kids loudly running around so I'm doing the best I can. So, my credit report. I have several old bills that are on there. I'm getting my taxes back and want to pay off as much as I can. I have bills that say they are in "collection" and some that say "charge off". My Questions: 1) Should I send Validation letters to all of them? 2) If they come back validated I plan to send a delete upon payment letter and go from there but should I pay off the collection ones first or the charge off's? 3) Do I start with the higher bills first? (one is a repo'd car for $2200..which I obviously know is mine, do I even bother sending a Validation letter to them? The smallest is a $140 insurance bill for my ex's truck) Or just pay off as many of the smaller bills as I can? 4) I have 5 "paid coll" bills that I did pay off last year. I didn't ask them to "delete upon payment" (silly me, didn't know about this site then) so they are still on there. Is there anything I can do about getting those removed? Calling the companies I paid off? 5) There are 2 "paid charge off" What is that? One is for my electric company that says account closed at consumers request and the other is for a cell phone company that is also on my report as in collections...I'm confused. Can I get these removed? Dispute? If so what should I dispute as? 6) Filed bankrupcty chapter 7 in 2004. There are 5 companies on there that say bankrupcty. Anything I can do about those? They are legally on there, I'm just wishful thinking. 7) 1 account that says no status. Was last reported in 10/04 but says it was opened in 1/06. I'm rather confused. Have no idea what it's for, although it says "medical". It says account in dispute - reported by subscriber (FCBA) What is this and can it be removed? Apparently I already disputed it? But I don't remember doing so. I feel like I have a VERY long road ahead of me. I'm just hoping to buy a house within the next 2 years. I feel like that's a long shot... Thanks in advance for any help you guys can offer me.
Welcome to the forum, and good luck on your journey! It won't be easy, but it'll be worth it. 1.) Have you been contacted by any of the CAs regarding these debts? If so, then yes- you should always DV them immediately to protect your rights under the FDCPA 2.) Deciding what debts to tackle first will depend on a lot of factors. Are some of the charge offs with the OCs, or are they all with CAs now? 3.) Perhaps, but not always. Do you have a sizable amount of money prepared to settle these debts? 4.) Not much you can really do regarding these now. You can always ask them to remove the negative marks, but they have no incentive to do so at this point. 5.) "Paid charge off" simply means it's a charge off that you paid. The problem you'll have removing these is the same as in question #4. The reason you also have collections for these 2 accounts is because the OC either turned them over or sold them to a CA after charging them off. 6.) Sorry- you can't do much about these either. BK will only get better with time. 7.) If you don't think this debt is yours, then dispute it through the CRAs as such.
