hi to all. i am glad to have found this site, and hope that someone here can help me correct the errors of my ways. i have spent the last few weeks lurking and finally made the jump and registered. i guess that i need to begin with a little bit about me and my financial situation. i am currently 29 and maintain a fulltime job making good money. i have been married for about 3 years and have no joint accounts with my wife (we tried once and it didn't work out to good). the mortgage is in her name but i make the monthly payments. a few weeks ago i applied for a loan to buy a new camper. I was denied for several reasons (lack of credit history, multiple late and extreme late payments, ect). this was with my local credit union. the young lady went over eveything with me and also said that my credit score was 613. recently i had carecredit go to collections on me. they called and made an offer that i could not refuse. i paid it off via phone and made sure that i got a letter in writing stating that the account was paid and closed. i believe that this is the extreme late on my report and it should also be the only change to my report since the purchase of my car last july. now that i know better i wish i would have gotten them to delete it from my report. is there anything that i can do about it now? sometime over the next few days i will be getting copies of my credit report and posting info for everyone to help evaluate. i was curious to know if i need to get from all three or if i could do the 3 in 1 option that all of them provide for? i know that mine is not good but now that i know there are people out there in the same boat as me i don't feel as embarrased. i also have another issue that i am dealing with. i have been getting calls from collections agencies looking for the previous owner of my phone number. for whatever reason no matter how many times i have told them to stop, they refuse. any ideas on how to deal with them? thanks tdc
Get your reports through annualcreditreport.com or request written copies from all three credit reporting agencies. This will give you more detail than you can get from a 3-in-1, and you are entitled to a free copy of your credit report from each agency, each year. You are also entitled to a free copy whenever you are denied credit. As for the people calling you, get a recorder and start taping the calls. Each time you get a collection call, ask for the name of the company (they are required to tell you this). Ask who they are looking for. If it's not you, tell them the truth -- that you don't know that person. Tell them not to call you again. It's also a good idea to follow up with a letter telling them the same thing. After that, every time they call you is a violation of the FDCPA.
i pulled all three reports using the one free per year deal. i was a bit upset that i had to pay to get the score for each one, but in the end i have all three credit reports in front of me. i must say that they pretty much have what i anticipated on them. i talked to my sister who is a loan officer for my credit union and she told me they use transunion for thier stuff. makes me curious since i was told last week that my score was 613 and today when i pulled it i was at 685. now to get some opinions on what to do next. the following are some entries from my reports that are consistant with all three... fifth third bank (mortgage) status: paid, closed/current was past due 60 days last reported: 06-2006 gemb/care credit status: paid in settlement/current, was 120 past due last reported: 03-2008 creditors statement: account legally paid in full for less then full balance (settled for less then 1/3 of full balance) this account does not say that it is closed, does that mean it is still available? hsbc/ polaris status: paid/closed collection account last reported: 02-2007 account was 120 late no settlement, i ended up paying it off. these make up the list of negative remarks on my report. i would really love to work on getting rid of at least one of these but prefer to remove all three. what do i need to do to make that happen? i really believe that carecredit is the one that hurt me on the loan for the camper. the other two were there when i bought my car last year. i have several loans that are all listed as paid and never late. i even had a credit card that was paid and never late, but for some reason i closed it awhile ago. i currently maintain 1 credit card with cap1 that has a $0 balance. as well i have a discover card that i have about 2800 on with a 3500limit. i am currently paying that down as quickly as possible. i have no other cards and i really don't use credit if i want to buy something. the only other thing that is active right now is my vehicle loan through my credit union. i see that i have several inquiries on my reports. some are listed as being only available to me and some are listed as being available to all that view my report. so which ones are considered hard pulls? what can i have removed? what do i need to keep? how can i have them removed? how do they affect my credit scores? i believe that i need to pick up a card to try and lower my utilization percentage and help build a revolving credit line. i looked last night and found that i should be applying for an orchard bank card. is this correct? are there any others out there to look at? i don't mind paying a fee as long as it is helping me. now my dumb question... if i get a new card do i actually need to use it or can i just let it sit in my safe? should i make small purchases on it to show a payment history? sorry for all of the questions and sorry to sound so new at this! i really want to get this corrected as soon as possible. thanks tdc6582
HSBC is pretty diligent about verifying. The mortgage, hasn't been reported in 2 years. However, depending on when the lates actually occurred, the fact you HAD a mortgage may be helping your score more so than the late notations are hurting. No experience with GEMB products.
