Is it just me?

I've been lurking a lot and reading the advice on this board which has been helpful. I have managed to make improvements to my credit score and creditworthiness and for that I am thankful. I wanted to check, however, and see if I am missing something here that could help me.

My situation is not as bad as some of the others here. I got into trouble by running up the balances on credit cards. The next mistake I made was blowing off payments. I got tired of writing a bunch of checks every month for small payments and not seeing progress, so I would make one big payment and blow off other payments for the month. The result is a slew of late pays on my reports. I did manage to reduce my balances from 15,000 to 5,500 presently and that will be paid off soon. My last late pay was November of last year and my scores were at their worst at that time - low 500's. I have gotten a few derogs removed. My utilization has not improved much due to creditors closing accounts. My scores are in the mid-600's but I seem to have stalled.

I have never had a collection or a charge off or a bankruptcy - just late pays. I have tried disputes, goodwill letters and nutcase letters, but they just won't go away.

It seems to me that the people who have gotten into deeper trouble have better remdies available - there are always reports from people here that they got a bk or a collection deleted because it couldn't be properly verified. However, for someone like myself that just has the lates, it seems like your stuck with them unless you have a friendly creditor. Am I missing something?

 

Tried, but no go. Neither Sallie Mae nor MBNA would remove the late pays in response to a goodwill letter. It just seems that if you cross that line where you have collections, charge-off's, judgments, etc. that you almost have an easier time repairing your credit. I managed to pay everything before it reached that stage and I'm afraid I've already exhasted my options as far as the derogatory entries go.