Thank you all!! 269 point increase and a NEW HOME!

Hey everyone,

I've been MIA for a while because we have been so busy. I just wanted to thank everyone for your kind advice, support, and guidance over the past 6 months. Special shout out to Mindcrime, Jam, and Jason!!

I was able to pull off a miracle with everyones help...

6 months ago my husbands scores were just barely over 500 and mine were in the low 700s. Our scores were pulled by our mortgage lender recently and my husbands mid score was 769 and mine was 794. Over 6 months from my husbands credit alone I had 20+ collections removed, 18 late payments deleted, a child support account closed and deleted, a few charge-offs removed, and a bad bank account deleted. I was able to add him as a joint user to 2 of my cards and an authorized user to 3. I also increased our total credit available from about $7,000 to $45,000!

Yes, you read that right... My husbands scores increased 269 points in just shy of 4 months! Mine has been more of a challenge but I was able to get my one late payment removed and a few other things sorted out to boost my score a bit.

I am happy to say that this past weekend we took a trip back home and signed a contract to have our dream home built!! We would have never thought it would be possible this soon. Our mortgage lender said that our credit was immaculate and she was very impressed that we are both debt free.

I just wanted to stop by and thank you all, I couldn't have done it without help! I will be sticking around here so hopefully I can pass along what I've learned to others.

 

Thanks everyone!! It's an awesome feeling for sure.. Now we just have to wait a long 6 months while our house is being built!

My husband owes me for sure... We qualified for the lowest interest rates and it ended up saving us a ton of money. We only had to pay off 2 of the collections, one for $80 and one for $90, so not too bad!

As far as the methods I used... I made sure I was very organized and persistent. I made a spreadsheet for everything. I signed up for credit monitoring and entered into the spreadsheet the scores and any changes every single day for 3 months straight. I checked our credit reports and scores every 24 hours.

I started by getting all 3 credit reports. I then typed up a word document for each CRA... Some of the info was the same and some different so I needed to be sure I had laid out what I wanted to do for each CRA and each account. I definitely had my work cut out for me. To start, I just did some online disputes to clean up addresses and phone numbers etc. I also disputed a few things and they fell off.

Other things weren't as easy. I had to make a lot of phone calls and send a ton of mail. I started by DVing across the board on everything. Just by sending the DVs some of the collections fell off. There were also 2 accounts that weren't opened by my husband, they sent a validation letter but it was his ex-wife that signed for the services. For that one I had to call the hospital the bill was from (even though it had gone to collections) and they pulled the file and found that she signed the papers, so they transferred it to her name. That one took the longest to deal with. I contacted the BBB, FTC, AG, and everyone in that state before the hospital agreed to change it. The collection agency was a bunch of jerks, but it got taken care of.

The child support was a fight. They said they wouldn't delete. I had to email the lady every day trying to persuade her to delete. I found a loophole in one of the state laws in terms of credit reporting and I called her out on it. At the end she said they would stop reporting but wouldn't delete. I don't know if she just had to say that, or if she made a mistake, but it got deleted completely.

CapitalOne had a late payment that they refused to delete. I had to call and email them pretty much 3 times a week for a few months. Finally I think the lady was sick of me so she deleted.

I added my husband as a joint user to a few of my credit cards (for those that wouldn't pull his credit) and an authorized user on the ones that would pull to make him joint just to keep inquiries down.

I did one PFD, which seemed odd because only the OC was reporting but I paid the collection agency and the OC deleted.

He had a bank account that was closed/charged off and had a balance still. He called Service Credit Union and they were happy to work with him. I emailed the CEO too and she responded back (on a Sunday!). We paid that and they deleted so that one was pretty easy also.

There were a few lingering things that were supposed to fall off in about 6 months. I disputed those with the CRAs last month and they fell off early! Yahoo! So that was the last collection and boosted his final scores to the high 700s.

Pretty much I just stayed organized and persistent and didn't get discouraged. It seemed like a lot at first, but every time those scores increased it gave me a little boost of motivation.

 

Jason, thats awesome! I hope it will be able to inspire and motivate others. I'll head over and like the Facebook page too!

 

Mrs T,

Sorry for the delayed response! Things have been pretty hectic here.

Don't feel discouraged-- sometimes it can be a slow process so just focus on small goals and victories... If you worry too much about the big picture it can be discouraging.

I used EliminateIDTheft... I've heard mixed reviews on it but I really like it. You can pull every 24 hours from all 3 of the CRAs and not only see the report but get scores also. It is also very reasonable ($18 a month for both me and my husband, I think for just 1 person it's around $12). I personally liked it a lot and it served it's purpose for me (being cost effective and the fact that I could pull all 3 every day, a lot can change in a day!) Now that things have stabilized and our reports are clean I may try a different service.

I did have one trade line that was charged off and reported by the original creditor instead of the collection agency. It was only showing up on one report. Since I didn't know who the collection agency was, I just contacted the OC. They said that they had placed it with a collection agency (Transworld or something) and to contact them. So I contacted Transworld and they said they had sold it to NCO. I got back in touch with the OC and asked them what would happen if I paid the CA. They said to pay the CA and that they would delete. This seemed really sketchy to me so I sent the OC a PFD letter outlining our agreement and the collections guy signed it and returned it to me. When I got the signed letter back, I paid NCO financials. I mailed the OC a copy of the money order and provided the tracking info for the CMRR that I sent it. It took a few weeks to get deleted, but they finally did! It hasn't shown up as reported by any other CAs so I think we are in the clear. I would say just be sure you get everything in writing.

Best of luck!

 

Thanks Kam!!

I guess I should put a disclaimer that these are not normal results!! I don't work so I literally spent ALL DAY every day on this for at least a month to get everything organized. I treated it like a full time job.

He does owe me... I think he's finally realizing how important credit is!

I was just hoping to give some other people some encouragement... Keep pushing forward!