Hello everyone. Been a longtime member and lurker. Though I've been around a while, haven't done a thing about my credit reports. Haven't needed to, as I pay cash for everything, have investments, and hate debt. Student loans from a decade ago cured me of any addiction to additional credit. I think at this point in time, it's time to start the process. I'm going to clear up some bad lines on my reports, and the two big ones are an an agreed-to judgment on a student loan that must be at least seven years old, if not longer, and another student loan I may be paying off shortly. Beyond that, not much except a bunch of annoying medical-related items, such as small charges from labs for routine health checkups. Absent the student loan, I have no other debts -- no mortgage, no car loan, no credit card debt, nothing. For those of you who have started the cleanup process in the last couple years, a couple of initial questions. First, has anyone started the process by attacking the smallest/easiest items first, learning the process, and moving up to the big stuff? Is this a good way to proceed? Or will it alert the CRAs and creditors I'm active and they need to watch my account more closely? Second, based on recent experience, is their a particular CRA report I should pull and focus my energies on? I want to start slow and avoid mistakes -- the "100 things to avoid when starting out" post was particularly informative. Finally, is it still appropriate to post one's questions and progress, from the start of the journey to the end, even asking mundane questions? Yes, have re-reviewed the FAQ, both Intro posts, Things to Avoid Post, am going to start on the FDCPA and FCRA posts, and then review some of the letters. If there's anything else that helped recent beginners when starting out, please advise. Thanks everyone. Haven't even pulled my free reports yet, but I'm going to this weekend.
Welcome, and I'm glad to hear that you're finally ready to tackle those credit reports. Please feel free to post your experiences throughout and ask any questions you have. Hopefully we can all be of some assistance and learn from your experiences as well. So, my recommendation would be to take care of the big judgment first if you have the funds to make it happen. That's just my personal preference though. After the judgment, I would then move on to the small medical accounts that are in collections or late. Also, pull all 3 of your credit reports, compare them, and start with the one that has the most errors and negative information. I wouldn't recommend ignoring any of them and just focusing on one. They're all just as important as the others. Keep excellent documentation of every letter you send and every response from your creditors. Of course, get any agreements with creditors in writing too! It doesn't sound like you have a lot of baddies to deal with, so hopefully you won't have too much trouble keeping track of what's going on. Best of luck to you, and hope to see you around the forum more often.
