My wife and I had our bankruptcy discharged Dec. 2002. We have had a few credit cards over this time and have kept them current. We now have 2 newer cards with 7k limits and better interest rates. We have paid on all of them religiously over the 3 1/2 years. We also have car loans over this time that we have also kept current. Basically we have kept perfect credit since the bankruptcy. One of our cards keeps us updated on our Transunion score. It has slowly crept up until it reached it's peak 2 months ago. 662 for me, and 702 for her. I started a few disputes to try and clean up our reports, but all of them came back verified. We are trying to buy a house. I also used our tax refund check to pay our balances down from 8k to 3k. I thought paying then down would raise our scoreschecked our credit cards free Transunion score and it said 600 for me and 660 for her. I was frantic hoping something was a misprint. So I got all of my scores from myfico.com and I was horrified. EXP 588 EQ 623 TRU 597 What the hell happened? There is no way that we will get a decent loan with those scores. I thought that if you established good credit for a few years post BK you would be able to get a prime home loan. I contacted each bureau and they said that the scores from myfico.com were not accurate and it would be better to get the score from each of them individually. What could have possibly happened to effect our scores so negatively, so quickly? We have not applied for any new credit and like I said before our credit has been stellar for 3 1/2 years. Please Help!
"I contacted each bureau and they said that the scores from myfico.com were not accurate and it would be better to get the score from each of them individually." Not accurate? They are calculated from the same report information, from credit reports pulled from the same CRAs, as any creditor would use. What are the CRAs claiming? That they are sending erroneous reports to myfico, but are sending accurate ones to you, and to your potential creditors? Sounds like a deceptive sales pitch. Some of the scores the CRAs are selling aren't even FICO scores. Now they are "better" than FICO. The CRAs' own consumer credit report selling operations already got caught deceptively selling "free" credit reports. If this is their new pitch, why don't you forward that information to FTC?
Don't go crazy. First rule of thumb!!! I read once that a recent dispute can temporarily down your scores. Some other replies will clarify that better I'm sure. Also, what items did you dispute? Are the items from your bankruptcy? Are they collection accounts or charge off's or.... What I have learned on this board: SOL & DV (statue of limitations) (debt validation) If your dispute came back verified through the CRA's, welcome to the millions of us. When the CRA's "verify" they basically match up your acct. number. I say: check your state's SOL, meaning the time they can file lawsuit from the original date of delenquincy. Do these companies you are trying to remove contact you? How old are they? Based on all of that information you then need to decide whether or not to DV. DV- there are many sample letters on here for debt validation. This means that you are asking the CA(collection agency) to verify the debt. Making THEM prove the debt is valid. Based on what I have seen on this board more often than not, for many reasons, they can't or don't take the time to care. Look to postings from Butch, he's great. Also very helpful to me, postings by Always, Kensling, diggin out, many others. Research and don't give up. If you stay up researching on this board I feel you can get those disputed items off your reports and your numbers back up. Hope this helps. Keep replying, keep posting!!! Reatha
