Hi all, long time lurker, ready to get my feet wet. I'm not going to bore everyone with sob story; where I am is my fault and my fault only. I also have everything paid off; with the exception of two current accounts (revolving credit at furniture store, and new First Premier [yucky, but gotta start somewhere] CC) that are barely used and have a perfect payment history. I have a good job(2+ yrs), and over about $1k/mo in disposable income. While I don't want to throw it away, I am willing to do whatever's needed to improve my credit rating. I do have a multitude of questions however. 1. First and foremost, most of what I read here is attempts to reduce the impact of previous mistakes. I do have a little of that I will attempt, but I really want some advice on what steps I can take now to improve my credit rating, instead of trying to remove/reduce the affect of past mistakes. What can I say, I'm old fashioned. What kind of usage/payment pattern will make me more attractive to CC companies? I know someone will say 'pay your bills'. I do that, solidly. I have a budget setup from here to end of 2005 at least, with everything accounted for, and I've stuck to this budget since 2002. I also have plenty in savings to immediately pay off all debts in case a bad situation comes up, such as getting laid off. What sort of behavior will help me increase the limit and terms on my CC, or increase my score to make better term cards more available? Should I pay the balance in full each month and fill it back up each month? Should I charge it up, sock drawer it, and just pay minimums? The letter from First Premier said that I'd be eligible for a increase in six months, with a footnote that 'cash advance usage and paying more than the minimum may impact whether a credit limit increase is granted'. I noticed it doesnt say which way it would affect it. What sort of balance should I keep on the card ($250 limit), what sort of usage should I show, and what sort of payment strategy should I be using to better my chances of limit increase/term improvement? Remember, the interest/fees are NOT a concern, only the resulting increase/terms. Should I try for other cards/credit lines? 2. I have a total of 6 accounts that are showing as negative on both TU and EXP records. All of them are truly accounts that I had, although I can't verify if the minor details are accurate (num. days late, dates involved). Three of them were closed by the creditor, with a record of lates, but eventually paid back in full to the original creditor; they were not charge offs nor sent to collections. Three of them include a charge off (no lates), paid collections (no lates), and a cancelled (no lates). If any of this doesnt make sense, or I am unclear, please let me know and I'll put up more data about them. Since the number to attack at once seems to be about roughly 4, I was planning on doing three at a time; which ones though? Should I work against the ones closed with the original lender, or the onces sent to collections/charge off? Forgive me if this is a simple question, but I dont know how much each type of record affects my score. 3. I have a collection showing as unpaid for $44 to a local video store from way back when. Funnily enough, I have a signed and dated letter from the manager of the store saying the account was cleared and nothing was owed on it. A while back, when I rented from there, I had some late fees, and it took me a while to get them paid. What I didnt know, is that they had sent me to collections before I paid them, and the kid wasn't supposed to take my money. He did, and I later received my first notice from the collection agency about the owed moneys. I brought it to the manager of the store who wrote the letter and signed it, saying he would contact the collection agency. I guess she never did. Luckily, I kept the letter. What would be the best way to handle this? The money WAS owed, and paid to the rental store. Should I try a 'not mine' statement to the CRA as normal? Any advice here would be helpful; its become an annoying $44 thorn in my foot which should have been removed years ago. I'm showing a 655 with TU, and a 649 with EXP. I'm hoping I can get that worked on a little; I have a personal goal of a Amex blue, so the little cool logo can tell me I did it. Thanks to all for the great forum.
What I normally do is start with the oldest, or the ones which haven't been UPDATED recently. Since the data furnisher will try to just do a cursorary review of their computer system, if they recently updated the CRA there is a chance that it would still be in their computer system. Now, since Johnson v. MBNA guarantees us the right to demand a CONCLUSIVE VERIFICATION, not based off of a cursorary review of the data furnishers computer system, we do have an upper hand. So, if the account is more than 5 years old, or hasn't been updated in I would say about a year and a half, or two years, I would target those first. My first dispute with TU netted 10 deletions out of the 12 accounts disputed, (1 was deleted the next month because TU processed that dispute as a not mine, instead of the dispute that I had told them to use), and 1 was deleted about six months later after a lot of manuevering. With any accounts which are in a collection agency, I would send a validation letter to the collection agency before disputing for good measure. Just because it looks normal the way its listed, doesn't mean that it is normal, and you want to ensure that everything is reported correctly, and since they have no $ to gain by doing that work, they may just decide to let it drop. What current pattern are they looking for... Well, that will depend on who is doing the looking... But in general, if you are making regular payments then there is a real payment history. Utilizations which are favorable will depend on the credit limit (the higher the limit, the lower the utilization which is favorable because every % is a larger $ amount.) 50% or less for small limits, 20% for larger seem to be the ratios that Privacy Guard advises on. The smaller the utilization the better, however when the utilization gets in the single digits you may tend to go in the other direction, so you may have to expirement with fluxuating the utilization by a % point on one trade line to see how it alters your score. Just because the manager called the collection agency doesn't mean that the CA will delete the account on their own. What exactly does the letter from the owner say, and did you ever personally contact the CA? And is the CA showing paid (zero balance) or unpaid? I would demand validation from the CA, and then dispute this one. I had this type of a problem with a CA about an account, I eventually had to demand that EX do an OC verification with the OC so anxious to never hear from me ever again that he would have said that I was the POPE, if that would make it happen. Be careful with disputes to EX, usually you only have one shot, so you need to make it a good one. You will have to do a lot of wrangling if you ever want to get EX to re-dispute a trade line whcih they have 'verified' once.
1*I also have everything paid off; with the exception of two current accounts 2*I really want some advice on what steps I can take now to improve my credit rating, instead of trying to remove/reduce the affect of past mistakes. 3*Should I pay the balance in full each month and fill it back up each month? Should I charge it up, sock drawer it, and just pay minimums? 4*Three of them were closed by the creditor, with a record of lates, but eventually paid back in full to the original creditor; 5*Three of them include a charge off (no lates), paid collections (no lates), toodles ============== 1*If you did not get this deleted when you paid it, it hurt you rather than helped. 2*If you don't remove the Negs. they will hold them against you rather than consider recent Positives. 3*Paying only the Min. is considered a Neg. Pay it off except for a few bucks each month. Paying it in full each month is also looked upon as a Neg. 4*You don't get credit for paying in full but you do get dinged twice here.1=closed by the creditor is very Neg. & 2= the lates. 5*There had to be lates on these. You can't have a charge off or collection with out there having being lates. Lates are what causes charge-offs and collections.
