Ok--I'm going to divorce myself from Lexington Law Firm and do this myself, but I need help on where to begin. I just received something from Experian. It has 3 of my creditors listed and says that they have already been investigated and that I should check my credit report for addresses, phone numbers, etc. What type of letter should I use to respond to this? Remember, because I was with Lex Law Firm, I don't have a copy of the letter they sent out, so I can't enclose a copy of the last dispute letter sent to Experian.
I just divorced them myself, and here's what I did. Since I'm using the "nutcase rationale" I wanted to make sure that I was disputing with the CRA after I knew that the CA/OC received a validation request. So, when my green cards came back from the CA's I got online and disputed then. When the â??verificationâ? is complete, and you better believe that it will be â??verifiedâ? by the CRA, I then shot out the PR to the CRA again by CRRR. I would think that this would be your best approach. Funny thing is that I tried to dispute with EXP two items again online yesterday, and the system refused one of the disputes, and accepted the other, so Iâ??ll go with a mailed dispute via CRRR (look in the sample letters to find the dispute letter). This way if the EXP refuses to investigate, then (unless Iâ??m understanding it wrong) I have them on a violation.
Thanks for your reply. Did you have any luck at all with Lex?? How long were you with them? We have been with them for 15 months!!!! I just kept holding out hope. They were able to get miniscule things deleted (old accounts that I'm now understanding would have been better to leave on!!, old 30 day lates, etc.) The stuff that's really bringing our score down hasn't moved. I've also noticed that items that were once deleted have popped back up on some of the reports. I'm fairly certain that the one item that's hurting us the worst is our mortgage. We were late back in August of 2002. We made the August payment in September and continued to make regular monthly payments until our mortgage company finally re did our loan in June of 2003. The problem is that because it took them so long, we kept racking up the 30 day lates. A couple of the CRAs (Experian for sure) is reporting one 60 day late in the mix, which actually never occurred. When our current mort holder re did the loan, they kept it at its original 7.5% rate which was good & conventional when we took it out. Of course the rates are so much better now, but no one will touch us. We would love to just refi without any cash out just to get a lower interest rate and lower payments. I'm not sure how to approach this with the CRAs. I don't want to screw myself by verifying it myself. I was told by a mort co that they could count consecutive 30-day lates as one, but that the 60 day late was hurting us even though it only shows on one or two reports. Do you (or anyone else) have any ideas for approaching this?
I had no problems canceling with Lex, just a call to let them know that I didnâ??t want the services anymore, and I asked for an update on the items that were in dispute. They knocked off 19 of 29, so I was pretty happy with the results, but the last few items required a different approach. Since they had done their duty, I wasnâ??t owed a refund, and I wasnâ??t really looking for one, as again, they did do some help. I was with them about the same amount of time that you were, and the real issue was more on my part not providing them with the reports on a timely manner. As for re-fi, have you considered a credit union? I just finance my house at 3.92% on a 7/23 balloon, and this is with another mortgage on a house that hasnâ??t sold yet. My FICO was in the low 600â??s when I applied, and my wife isnâ??t working right now. The CU required that I put down 20%, since I couldnâ??t get underwritten for PMI, which is all the better as itâ??s more money that I didnâ??t want to spend. My old mortgage is at 8% (OUCH!!!) but since the house is for sale, re-fi doesnâ??t make much sense at this point. Weâ??re planning on a short-sale, and the mortgage company is going to work with us on repaying the difference in the amount owed, and the final sales price. They looked at our payment history (never late since opening) and our current credit (getting better by the day) and they said NO PROBLEM!!! As far as the late payments, you could always try the goodwill approach with your current lender, as it might just work. Otherwise, I would suggest looking at a CU as they are pretty forgiving on credit report boo-boos.
