Hi - I need advice on how best to clean up my credit. I'm currently going through a divorce. During last year of marriage - my exhusband stole my credit card numbers and ran them up online. He then took the bills and never paid them. I didn't even know how bad the debt was until we seperated. However, since there was no way to prove that the debits were not mine I can not add the debt to the divorce settlement and since the debt is so bad at this rate - financially I was unable to just pay them off. They are in collection at this rate and I have a lot of >Charged Off as Bad Debt< on my reports. I just received some money from the settlement and I can begin to pay all of these debts off. In 2011 the house we lived in will go up for sale and after it is sold I will have to be getting a new home. I need to have this debt cleaned up so I will not have a problem getting a decent home for me and my child. I'm very scared about the future and I need some advice.
Work with the creditors directly if possible. See if you pay in full if they'll remove the line from your reports or better yet, mark it as paid as agreed. Most likely won't but, I would advise you to pay in full anyway insofar as you can thereafter start disputing those tradelines through the credit reporting agencies with a much higher chance for success. Also, write to officers of the creditors which you paid off and explain the situation. Some will have the lines deleted. It will be a rather long and ardous battle. You will remove some through the methods I mentioned above. For those that remained, you should have FCRA violations upon which you can sue. Whether you do that or not is up to you. Finally, if anything has been sold to a debt purchaser, you may as well start fighting through disputing through the credit reporting agencies and asking for validation.
