Hey Everyone, My name is Paul for creditnet purposes I read the sticky about newbies so let me go ahead and start by saying I'm an idiot for not looking at my credit sooner and I KNOW NOTHING! Teach me wise credit gurus... I just graduated from college and I'm under a huge pile of debt and in addition my credit score is poor according to the annual credit report. I will go ahead and post my current status as given by my latest report. Please forgive me if this isn't the right place to post. It appears to be as I see other intro posts here. If not I apologize. This is a summary of what I got from Transunion: Adverse Accounts: Bank of America: 0 balance Paid or paid as agreed status. Date updated 10/2008 REMARK says account closed by credit grantor. 30 DAYS LATE 2 times 60 DAYS LATE 1 time 90 days late 2 times. Past due 0.00 Capital one: Balance 1305 Limit 1500 Date opened 12/06 Only 1 late payment only since account was opened. I'm not sure why this is considered adverse but it is. Pay status paid or paying as agreed WFNNB Balance 0. Date updated 09/2004 Loan type Charge account high balance 131.00 Past due 0.00 Pay status: paying as agreed. I closed this account in 2004. Satisfactory accounts Chase student loan: 5,800 Paying as agreed. Currently deferred. Citibank balance 2,170 limit 7,900 paying as agreed opened in 2000 Student Loan Balance 19215.00 not yet in repayment unrated Student Loan Balance 13,000 not yet in repayment unrated Student Loan Balance 8,000 not yet in repayment unrated Student Loan Balance 4,000 Payment deferred opened 2003 updated 6/2010 WFNNB Charge account balance 0 limit 200. Closed by consumer paid as agreed. My credit is listed as poor. My score reported by Transunion's Zendough that I signed up for to get a score, and will cancel was 682. According to Credit Karma its 619. Where should I start in trying to raise my score? I would like to buy a house eventually, but I am rejected from almost any credit application for even a card.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st So you just graduated from college. Ok so are you working now and if so approximately how much do you make? While credit scores are important and getting new credit is always desirable, getting a good job and showing that you are building a good record of on time payments is about the most important for new grads. Show that you aren't out there buying the world's junk and are doing something positive about getting that mountain of student loan debt reduced over time will probably do you more good than just about anything else during the next 6 months to 1 year.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Yes I am working, but its only part time as its been tough to find a job in my field. I make about 1000 per month after rent and utilities (that doesn't include food or gas money) and I'm still looking for decent employment. I've been reading a lot here and I would like to start disputing some of these old accounts but I see conflicting advice on how to get started. Some are saying that you should dispute every negative account and make them prove its yours, others say doing this will result in your future requests being ignored. Some say start out with the CRAs some say start out with the person owed... Also is my student loan debt even being computed into my score? I have friends with 720 scores who have over twice as much debt as me? Can anyone point me toward some kind of outlined structure for going through this or should I just continue reading posts randomly and try something? I've read the stickys and quite a few postings.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Welcome Paul! Bill is right - finding a good job in your field, continuing to make on-time payments for your existing accounts, and paying down your debt will be paramount to not only your personal financial success, but also your credit scores. If there are some accounts on your credit reports that are inaccurate or have missing information, dispute those accounts through the CRAs first. I wouldn't just go ahead and dispute anything negative just because it's negative. Now, the late pays are really hurting your credit scores, but they will have less of an effect over time, especially as you continue to make on-time payments and are NEVER late. That's something you need to commit to right now. Late payments will just kill your credit scores. Start paying down that Cap One card as fast as possible too. You shouldn't be using more than about 10-30% of your total credit limit. As soon as you do, that will help your score quite a bit as well.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Thank you for the advice! I will pay down that card asap. Also what is the best way to go about disputing the 90 day late marks on a credit card? I don't think that they are correct. I noticed sample letters on the other pages, which one would be best to use?
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st That was a brilliant observation. It should tell you all that you really need to know about credit repair. Ideas and theories about how to do credit repair are about like noses. Everybody has one. (LOL) . Of course, that should tell you something else which is that most people have at least some success with their methods which they put together piecemeal from visiting every message forum and e-group they could find. So what are the actual success rates for people doing their own credit repair. Available statics seem to indicate that people doing their own credit repair see about a 50% success rate. What about hiring a professional credit repair firm? Statistics say that on average they have about a 40% success rate. So what it all boils down to is that some people have had 100% success cleaning up their credit and some people have had 0% success and everybody else falls somewhere in between. There are no magic methods out there, not on this board or any other. I can speak with authority on that because I monitor just about every message board and e-group on both Google and Yahoo on a constant basis so if anybody comes up with some new idea I'm going to find out about it very quickly. In over 10 years of being on or monitoring message boards, nothing has ever come up that will come any better than about 50% on average. So all you can do is watch out for nonsense ideas and looney toons theories so you don't do something stupid and you will do just about as well as anybody else on average. Staying clear of the looney toons nutcase ideas is about as hard to do as coming up with good solid stuff. There is far more nutcase stuff out there than good common sense ideas.. So just pick your best sounding ideas and go for it. The best thing to keep you on the straight and narrow is to always stop and analyze the idea from the standpoint of what will you do when that one fails because it is never a question of whether or not that slick idea will fall flat on it's face. It is only a question of when it will happen. I'd say that for you it should be fairly easy. You really don't seem to have all that many problems. Seems to me that your best bet is likely to be trying to build up your income and not running up any new debt if you can help it and keeping up with the payments you have now. Do that and over time you should come out pretty well. Patience is often the best bet. I really can't give you an answer about that. Maybe that's the best bet. Have you worked your way through my Google Docs? That has loads of great resources and I keep updating it on a constant basis.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Thanks for the advice. It helps to know there really isn't a "right" way to go about things. As an engineer, I tend to look for the step by step solution lol. I will definitely take a look at your google docs! Thank you guys for the advice!
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st I used to be an engineer too. Electrical and Electronics both. Got my first engineering degree from Swindon College in Swindon, England where I was stationed with the USAF. So we have at least somewhat the same outlook on things. I also look for the step by step solutions. I couldn't find any that lead to a final workable solution so I decided to design my own. That was back about 1996 or so. I've been at it ever since. I still haven't perfected a 100% workable solution and as long as the laws remain pretty much the same I will never be able to reach that much desired 100% goal. Nobody else will ever do that good either so we have to accept whatever results we can get and keep striving to make them better and better as quick as we can. I've got a big milestone coming up in court Thursday, day after tomorrow. Of course I am confident that I have them in such a bind that the judge will have no choice but to rule in my favor on every point. On the other hand, Murphy's law might just beat the tar out of me. As you may well know, Murphy's law says that if anything can go wrong it probably will and at the worst possible time. (LOL). So we will just have to see what happens. All I can do is give it the old college try.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Ok another question, I've decided to dispute some the following account information that I believe to be incorrect. Bank One: 0 balance. Paid or paid as agreed status. Date updated 10/2008 REMARK says account closed by credit granter. 30 DAYS LATE 2 times 60 DAYS LATE 1 time 90 days late 2 times. Past due 0.00 WFNNB Balance 0. Date updated 09/2004 Loan type Charge account high balance 131.00 Past due 0.00 Pay status: paying as agreed. I closed this account in 2004. 1 30 day late and 1 90 day late. Ideally I would like the late information removed from these accounts or get the info deleted entirely. What verification of the debt is the CRA legally bound to give me for each account? What can I ask for? Are they simply allowed to say "yes its yours you have to pay it."? I plan to make my requests via certified letter.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st Before you do any disputing I'd look to see how the listing is rated. If it isn't an I-9 or a R-9 I wouldn't dispute it. Also depending on how old the listing is. If it is more than say 6 years old I wouldn't bother disputing it either.
Re: Newbie Here! Glad to have found the site, Looking for suggestions for where to st How do I verify whether something is I-9 or R-9, I don't see anything on the report.
