Back in 1996 I was introduced to the world of easy credit which, as it did with many on this forum, led me to indebt myself with no plan for escape. My lack of discretion left me with F- credit and a host of collection accounts. I have spent the last 7 years cleaning up my credit while at the same time living off of cash transactions and debit cards. Now that I am older, and smarter, I am attempting to create a decent credit profile so I can at least act like an adult. I went through several rounds with the CRA's who have removed all but two of the negative accounts from my CR. Additionally I got a $1,000 secured card from HHLD which I have used liberally and paid in full each month for the past 6 months. I was under the assumption that this would be enough to get at least some amount of credit from the sub-prime lenders, based on my scores (618TU, 588EQ, 646EX), but I can't even get approved for a secured card from Wells Fargo. Each time I am denied the reason given is "Current Delinquency with another Creditor"which is impossible as I have no current creditors other than my HHLD secured card which, as I stated, is paid in full every month, if not several times a month. It seems as if my problem is an old HHLD/BestBuy account which went into collections due to my stupidity back in 1997. The account was settled for 95% or so of the amount due in Oct of 1998. At the time I was nowhere near smart enough to demand deletion of the account, a fact which I certainly am regretting today! This account is reporting currently 60 to 120 days late on all three reports and shows twice on my EQ report. All listings show as Closed(paid) and make reference to the settlement, but each shows status as currently delinquent. TransUnion even show that it has been 60 days delinquent for the past 3 years! I have spoken to the Recovery Dept at HHLD and have been told 3 times that they are reporting the account as closed and paid and that there is nothing that they can do to ensure the correct information is reported. I have also spoken to all of the CRA's who tell me that they can do nothing but report the information provided to them. Of course I would like to get this entry off my report, but at the very least I need it to report correctly so I can go about correcting the mistakes of my past. I'm planning on giving HHLD 30 more days to see if the information finally gets corrected. If this fails what should be my next move? As I general rule I'm not one to bluster about suing just to make a point, but is that what is required in this situation? Any help/insight is, of course, greatly appreciated. --Andrew
