I have a somewhat credit related question. I have been working on my credit report for well over a year now and in that time I have mangaged to get 3 in my opinion decent credit cards and 4 store cards and a car (0%). My scores are on average about 660 with TU cleared (around 700) and EQ and EX with one negative charge-off. I have enough credit for this stage in my life and I am not in the market to buy a house. I probably could go on with my life and not have to worry about credit. Yet, I'm obessed with making my credit report clean and perfect. I can't bring myself to give up disputing. Why is that? If time is money, the costs of all this work are high, but I still wake up each day waiting to see if my credit has changed in anyway.
I know exactly how you feel and my husband is getting tired of me talking about it. I got 3 items removed at one time and once I started finding all these lovely laws that protect us and that we can use to get all this junk removed I've started working on this everyday. This all started with us trying to buy a house and our credit reports came up showing we owed over $17,000 and well over half of this wasn't ours, was duplicated, etc... If everything I'm working on now goes through the total debt will go down to $3500 which is what it should be. I love doing this, I wish I could do it and get paid!
I think this compulsion we develop is around the belief we actually have some control over an outside force we were not even aware of until recently. Now we understand its power and we want to take back that power. I believe in finding a balance in every aspect of my life. I've put much energy, time and some dollars towards learning and cleaning up my CRs since May, when I stumbled on to this board. I think at this point, it's diminishing returns. It will take me longer and longer to get less dramatic results. I have two Ch7 chargeoffs on EQ & TU, just saw EX turn a good tradeline bad - WTF??? I've knocked half my liens off completely, the remaining ones now have release dates. It's 2.5 years since my BK and I think the magic number will be 3 years. That's when all of my discharges - which are seen as lates - will be less important. I'm still making efforts, but I'm more laidback. I know my rights, I know how to act when they're stepped on, and I'm doing everything I possibly can to up my score. I've paid my balances down significantly and made very few inquiries recently. Once I've done what I can, then I let go and just let time do its part in this process. If I do nothing at all, my BKs will fall off in 7.5 years. Every reference to an account included in my BK will fall off in 4.5 years. I've already gotten a decent car loan w/Chase and have one CC w/a 10k limit (DMB), one with a $5250 limit (Aspire) and one with $1200 (cap1). They're all crap cards, but when it makes sense I'll approach Chase about a decent card. Time is on our side, and it's going to pass anyway. Trick is to find some other way to fill the time besides pulling our CRs every day...
I think once I get this first big round of disputes are gone I'll be more laid back. Because my husband has some things on his credit that is holding us back from buying a home. But if everything goes through like I'm praying it does I'll turn over $17,000 into $3,500. My husband is livid on the amount of money I'm spending on certiifed mail. Now that I know I've got some power over this I know I'll pull our reports atleast twice a year. The saleslady we're buying from wants to start sending people to me so I can help them. Not so sure I'm ready to tackle that though.
