I've spent the last few days reading both this and the Credit Talk forum and I think I've learned quite a bit. Unforunately, the more I learn, the more I find I don't know. Due to a combination of moving across the country, waiting 18 months for my old house to sell, a failed business, and general financial stupidity I'm in a situation where I wasn't able to pay my credit cards for a very long time and now have 6 of them in a charge off status on my (and my wife's) credit report. Our house finally sold so we now have the money to get everything paid for, which is a huge relief. I called the first of the collectors calling us to arrange a payment. They offered to settle for about 50% of the total and said that on the credit report the debt would be report paid as agreed. I also was told to make the check out to Citibank and not the CA if that makes a difference. I was at least smart enough to get all of this in writing before making payment though I'm still a little uneasy about the whole thing. It went much easier than I'd expected so I'm afraid I missed something. My problem now is that I'm not sure what to do next. The only letters I've gotten so far are from LVNV Funding, which bought both my wife and my old Best Buy cards. Since they apparently own the debt, there's nothing that can be done about the original HSBC charge off, right? Also, when I checked the credit reports LVNV reported the debt differently to each of the three CRAs, with different account numbers on each. Is this something that I should dispute or is that a common occurrence? I also noticed that there were a couple of items I expected to see on my credit report missing (old cards I still owed on) but there were also a couple of items I didn't recognize at all which could just be the cards I expected to be resold to someone else. I plan on disputing these since I can't be certain of what they are. So, after all that, here are my questions. What are the first steps to take? There are some debts I know are valid but since I haven't gotten anything from the CAs I don't know how to contact them, so should I dispute those, too? If not, what's the best way to go about contacting them? I know that I messed up big time and I'm wanting to get it fixed. We'd like to buy a house in the next year but I feel like I screwed things up so badly that it is pretty daunting to get started. So any help to get me started on the right path would be greatly appreciated.
Citi was the OC and OC's have all their ducks in a row usually and you did fine on this one. The other debts are with JDB's and they bought yoir old debt for pennies on the dollar. You want to DV all of these and keep copies and a journal of everything you sent and have done and any and all phone calls and messages received, so you will have leverage if you need it. So on my agenda I would review your latest crs. See what is on there, what is missing and discrepencies ..read over your dunning letters, send off validation letters and a limited C & D and then start being a good secretary and file everything. The JDB you have on your tail is notorious. Go to bud hibbs site and you will read all about them. Woofer
Wow, that Bud Hibbs site is scarier than anything Stephen King has ever written. But, it brought up another question. The debt that LVNV now owns is still within the SOL, since I last paid on it around 2 years ago. Is it in my best interest to contact them and try to work out a settlement or should I dispute it and hope for the best that way? Please keep in mind that my ultimate goal is to buy a house in the not too distant future. Also, if LVNV owns the debt now, even if I pay them and they go off the credit report, is there anyway to fix the original charge off from HSBC? I'm also confused on SOL. What happens if I move. I lived in Missouri when I made the debt but have since moved to Florida. Which SOL applies?
