Hi everyone, my name is James and I found this forum while searching for ways to improve credit scores. Just a small run-down of my past history. After making some stupid decisions as a teenager (It should be illegal to send credit-card offers to 16 year old kids) I ran into financial issues a few years into my marriage and first child. Well, I ended up filing Chapter 13 and am now 2+ years discharged. We have been fortunate enough to be able to finance a new car and home and we are trying to get our scores back up to at least average for our area. Since discharge I have had a perfect payment record on car and home as well as some small credit cards I got to help build the numbers up. I have a few medical collections which I am in the process of trying to settle in return for having all negative info removed from all CRAs. If you have any other advice on how to increase my score I would be happy to listen. Looking to get as close to 700 as possible so I can refinance car and house at a lower rate. Thanks in advance for any help and I look forward to learning a great deal through this forum.
Welcome to Creditnet! We're glad you found us. It sounds like you're doing a lot of things right already. Can you give us more details on the credit cards? For example, are you paying your balances in full each month and keeping the credit utilization under 10%? Since you already have several credit cards, a home loan, and an auto loan, you have plenty of credit already. Keep paying them all on time and building more positive payment history. To get back into the 700s, your FICO scores may just need more time to recover from the BK, and you definitely need to get rid of that medical collection. Was it charged off and sold to the CA, or are they just collecting on behalf of the medical provider? Does it only appear as a collection on your credit reports? Keep us updated on your progress, and we look forward to helping you with any questions you have along the way.
I am currently under 10% right now. In fact I just paid the balance on 2 of them this week and the others have 0 balances. As for the medical collection, it is by itself showing only as a collection. One other collection, which is my biggest concern, is one that has been purchased by Jefferson Capital, LLC. When they posted it on my CR they listed it under collections as well as negative accounts. It looks as if I had an account directly with them and have delinquent payments. The OC had been showing as a charge-off, but has since been removed from my CR. Still waiting to receive a letter from Jefferson regarding this account. Has anyone dealt with this company successfully?
Great- keep those credit card balances at 0. Regarding the first medical collection, try contacting the medical provider to see if they would be willing to pull your account back from collections so you can pay them directly. It doesn't sound like they've sold your debt, so they might be willing to do it. The other medical debt sounds like it was charged off, sold, and is now owned by Jefferson Capital. Make sure you're prepared to send them a DV letter as soon as they contact you regarding the collection.
