Hi everyone! I've visited this site numerous times over the past six months, but never made the decision to sink my teeth into the resources here and try to repair my credit. I've decided to give it a try finally. It was all daunting at first, but the more I read, the more realistic it seems. I accumulated a lot of bad items on my credit report because of being young and stupid (and unemployed off and on.) Some of it is medical, from being uninsured. My score is in the low 500's right now. Fortunately, things are looking up for me. I'm gainfully employed, and successfully managing my finances. I'm 24 now, and all the negative items are over 2 years old -- everything past that point is spotless (no lates, etc.). It's really not that much, a couple credit cards that got charged off (less than $3k total), a few odds-and-ends, like cable bills and cell phone bills that I never paid (about $2k total), and a judgment from a former renter (less than $2k). I have an auto loan right now, and two low-limit credit cards. I'd like to try and improve my credit over the next six months, though some of the techniques listed here. I can afford to "settle" some of it if I can get a pay-for-delete type of thing. What's killing me is my auto loan is at 18% APR, which is just insane! I desperately need to refinance it. I am going to go after the two charged-off credit cards first, I think. They are they only "revolving" items on my report. All the others are collection items. I think that'll have more of an impact on my score. I'm currently with truecredit.com, which shows me scores from all three bureaus, but I don't know if that's a real FICO score, or something it estimates? I'm still a little hazy on that. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi, and describe my situation. I'll probably be reading a lot on here. I'll post and progress I make, to add my little experience to the collective knowledge of this board. This is really an amazing resource, and you guys are totally awesome for making all this information available! -Joshua aka: Arterion
Welcome to the board. The scores you get direct from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are not FICO scores. Unless you are going for a mortgage - there is little need for getting the FICO scores sold at myfico.com That is a mortgage score model.
