hey everyone! i found this website about three weeks ago and have put in a lot of time reading the posts. i don't know too much about credit, but it's time to start getting serious about it. i just got married last year, my wife and i are planning to have children early next year and buy a condo or house as soon as we can. i have a pretty short credit history. both my wife and i got our first credit card (from MBNA) in 1999. i had very little money back then and ended up maxing it out at $1300. i settled with them about a year and a half later. i paid around $700 to have the account closed. we are still paying off my wife's card, which was also maxed out. also, we both have federal school loans (direct loans) that we are paying. i think i was late on payment a time or two a few years ago, but i've been pretty good about making payments that are more than the minimum, even when i get a bill that says i don't need to pay that month. besides that, we have not had any negatives on our credit...as far as we know. i recently tried to apply for a citibank CC, and it was denied because i didn't have 2 active revolving CC accounts elsewhere. we also applied for another MBNA CC, but were denied. then, a few weeks later, they sent my wife a pre-approved application, for what i think was the same type of card we applied for in the first case. we also just got approved on a 2 yr cell phone contract with sprint a few months ago. i'm not sure how much that means, but i'm assuming it'll do more good than harm. i don't think money is the problem. we're both 23, and although she's a teacher (which i'm sure you all know doesn't pay much) my job ensures we still bring in around 55,000 a year. i've been reading on this board about credit scores and reports. it sounds like they are 2 different things. from what i gather, the credit reports come from the 3 reporting companies. i'm not sure but it looked like the scores came from that FICO system. from the reading i did, it looks like the best way to start out would be to get complete credit reports and credits scores for both my wife and myself. if that is the case, i was wondering how to get those for free. i read several posts about using PrivacyGuard.com. however, when i went to that website, it asks me for a username and password. i know this post is kind of long, but while i was reading through the boards, it appeared to me that it was just good to get it all out there up front...where you are and where you want to be. i also saw a lot of people to took their time to help out one another and reply with invaluable information. this is my first post and i'm already thrilled that i found out about these boards. i've tried reading through dozens of websites that claim to teach you how to repair your credit and they haven't offered much (as i'm sure you can tell by my newbie first questions ) thanks in advance to everyone for reading this and i'm really looking forward to the replies. dilla
THere are ways you could get your credit report for free. SInce you were denied credit recently you can go to the individual credit agency and say that you were denied credit. You need to have been denied in the last 60 days. Some of the agencies don't even check to see if you have been denied, they will mail it to you for free. However privacyguard is something a lot of posters use. But you need to put in payment information. I do not use the service. I actually use www.identityguard.com. It is somewhat more expensive, but you get each of your credit reports and 3 fico scores from each agency, I am not sure if you get 3 scores for PG or if they use all of the information from each agency to give you one score. I can not speak to how to remove your settlement, or if you can. Others with more expeirence on that matter can direct you on how to do that. I would suggest trying to get a store card or two. Most requre that you have revolving credit elsewhere. Make a somewhat big purchase (that you can afford to payoff in 2-4 months), that will also help your scores. I'm sure PG and also indentity guard will tell you what you need to do to increase your scores.
thanks, eriqnoodle! identityguard seems like a good starting point. i contacted citibank and MBNA after our denials and they both pulled equifax. i tried to order my report over the phone (they said it would all be automated) but when i punched in all the info they requested...they said they couldn't find our denials. they said we would have to write a letter with a huge amount of information and send it to them to get our equifax report. it's not worth all that for one report. i like that identityguard gives you all that info for one price. i was looking around that website but i couldn't find any info regarding the minimum amount of time for which you would have to join. i was looking for a website where i could get all that info up front and then choose if i wanted to cancel or continue my membership. do you know if i could get all that for the 25.95 and then cancel? that would help me a lot because i wouldn't hesitate to order that. thanks again eriq! dilla
thanks, eriqnoodle! identityguard seems like a good starting point. i contacted citibank and MBNA after our denials and they both pulled equifax. i tried to order my report over the phone (they said it would all be automated) but when i punched in all the info they requested...they said they couldn't find our denials. they said we would have to write a letter with a huge amount of information and send it to them to get our equifax report. it's not worth all that for one report. i called identityguard and asked them if i could sign up for that $25.95 deal that includes the three reports, three credit scores and three months of monitoring, and then cancel after that if i wanted to, and they said i could. i've been looking for a deal like this on the internet for a while, but somehow missed identityguard.com. i'm going to be signing my wife and i up with them very soon. has anyone else out there used identityguard.com? if you have i'd love to hear how your experience was/is. thanks again eriq! dilla
eriq, disregard my first reply to your response. the second one is the one i meant to put on here. i couldn't edit the first one because it was past the 15 minute mark. dilla
