I'm a young guy with very limited credit history. Made some very stupid, easily avoidable mistakes when I was ignorant of all of this. Hovering at Equifax 480, up from 463. Here's a rundown of the situation: - Allowed an unsecured CapOne card to rocket up to 150day status with a balance of ~$900, but just paid in full to prevent it from going into chargeoff or collections. - Had a $1500 student loan go to 90day late status through sheer negligence but have also stopped the bleeding there. - Two Sallie Mae tradelines totaling $5000 are both paid on time with no negative comments. - Two collections accounts, one for $227 to Comcast and one for $97 to Sprint, which are accounts I forgot to close when I moved - Chargeoff on a department store HSBC card, $327 balance with 120days+ as worst delinquency. Appears on Equifax as OC, Experian and TU as a CA. - Apart from the student loans, which are from 2002, all debts are less than two years old. I have the cash to pay all accounts off, but from what I've read here I understand that it may well not be advisable. My proposed plan of action, then: - opt out and dispute my old address, to which the extant collection accounts are linked - one-two punch the two collection accounts and, failing that, offer a pay-for-delete settlement (obtain agreement in writing, - nutcase-letter CapOne and the delinquent student loan - Request validation from both OC and CA assigned to the department store card Going to see how things work out from here. I'd appreciate any input, feedback or advice anyone could offer me as I begin this task.
I'm not sure what your best course of action is, but you should change you name on this board from your real name to something that is generic. Pick any name, but don't put your real name as your "handle". You can do some research on this board if interested, but trust me, this is something that you should do.
Hai, You have two collection accounts, one for comcast and another for sprint.You forgot to pay it off,ok.No problem Your student loan account is there for you to pay the remaining amout through the banks.Can u give correct information of your student loan validity? Better change your old address. Good luck
I can't speak to some of the techniques you described, but I can tell you what has improved my situation. I'm by no means an expert, but four years ago my credit looked about as you described. I probably couldn't have bought a cell phone or gotten a $50 credit line with anyone in America. I have brought my score up around 150 points in a couple years by simply innundating my report with positive new credit. I started with secured cards, $200 and $300 limits, paying them off every month. At the time, my credit was so bad I actually got turned down several times for $300 secured cards. But through sheer persistence I found some lenders that would approve me for crappy little cards like that. My next step was to scrape up $1000 cash or so and take out a secured loan at my local credit union. I'd make the payments religiously, then pay the loan off early and take out ever larger secured loans, paying them off early as well. I got my dad to cosign on a small car loan with me, and paid that off early. I also got myself added as an authorized user to a card of my dad's with a $15,000 credit line that has been established for years. Gradually, the credit card offers have improved, and every time I get offered one with no outrageous fees I take it. For the first time in years I'm starting to get mainstream credit card offers and can be a little picky about what I accept. I've cancelled the crappiest of the lot, and now carry probably ten cards with credit lines ranging from around $1000 to $6000 each. Bank of America, Citi, Amex, Capital One, and a bunch of little ones. I'm not quite into excellent territory yet, but I'm getting established in the good. Meanwhile, my old bad credit has almost all fallen off my report. I guess my basic point is, three bad items on your credit don't look nearly as bad if they're surrounded by 25 good items. But if you have three accounts and they're all bad, you're screwed. When your old bad credit finally falls off your report in a few years, it's advisable to have something good there to take its place even if it is small stuff like secured cards. When the old stuff does fall away and you've been working hard on newer accounts, you'll see your score come up tremendously.
