Hello i am new to the forum and ended up here in my search for how to begin my credit repair. Im sure this first post may be a little long winded but i have lots of questions and literally no idea where to begin. I have pretty much taken an out of sight out of mind approach to my credit for the last 15 years. I have never really needed or wanted a credit card. I have child support payments which cut my paychecks in 1/2. So i have basically been doing what i can to survive. If an unexpected bill or fee popped up it was ignored, student loans....ignored, ect... I payed the bills i "had" to pay to live. Rent, phone, utilities ect. Lived paycheck to paycheck paying cash for everything. I have recently been thinking about "the light at the end of the tunnel" as far as Child support and the financial strapping it has imposed on me. On top of that my girlfriend and i have been thinking about getting married and it would be unfair to go into a marriage and have her "inherit" my credit problems. So i am setting my mind to cleaning up 15 years worth of mistakes. I recently attempted to pull my 3 credit reports from Annualcreditreport.com and i was allowed to get only one of them (experion). I printed it off and am going to use this as a starting point. At first glance things don't seem to be all that bad. There are 5 Negative items totalling around $1800. I am thinking i can clean those up fairly painlessly. I am hoping to contact each of them and settle for less , but if they wont i will just pay them and have the negative entry removed. Any further advice would be appreciated also. Now come the big questions, I know there are things that have "fallen" off of the credit reports due to time passing. Should i be concerned with these items anymore? I doubt i can recall all of them and have no idea where to even look for them. The only one i know for sure is my student loan. The last concern i have is my student loan. I have basicaly ignored it for 15 years. The last communication i had about it was around 7-8 years ago when i agreed to set up a payment plan of $50/month, but they refused to send me the paperwork because i would not tell them on the phone who my employer was. I told the guy on the phone "i am agreeing to pay per your terms and if you are refusing to send me the information needed to repay this i will consider this debt paid and expect not to hear from you again." Sounds goofy but i never did hear from them again. I doubt that this made the debt go away but it's absence from my credit report raises questions for me. I would like get this taken care for as little money as possible. I don't want to end up paying a ton of fees and such. I would have no problems setting up a payment plan for this. I also dont want this coming back on my credit reports and making that situation worse. Any advice would be helpful as i am pretty lost as to what will happen once i start the process. I want to avoid making things worse while trying to make them better. Thanks in Advance.
Welcome to Creditnet, and it's good to hear that you're finally ready to focus on cleaning up your credit. First, head back to annualcreditreport.com and pull your other 2 credit reports- Equifax and Experian. You can get one free credit report from each CRA each year, and you'll definitely want to know what's currently on all three before you begin this process. Also, regarding the old debts you've mentioned, one important thing to remember is that just because a debt falls off your credit reports doesn't mean it disappears. Technically, you still owe the debt to someone. But if it's not on your credit reports and no one has contacted regarding collection for a long time, there's always the chance that stirring the pot could make the situation worse. Just keep that in mind as you plan how to tackle the most important things on your credit reports. I'm surprised to hear the DoE hasn't come after you yet for the student loan too. I would take a look at the DoE's website to read up on all your options for the loan. You may even be able to rehabilitate it.
Well i went back and tried again on annualcreditreport.com but ended up having to request the other 2 by phone so i am waiting on them to send them in the mail. I also went and found some information about my student loan. It seems they have turned my loan over to a CA. it says this on the website: Does this mean they sold the debt or they just have a CA assisting with collection? As i was reading in some other posts if they sold the debt the SOL could effect it now. Also if i contact them and set up repayment will that further ruin my credit? or will that only be temporary if i rehab the loan. I am thinking for the rest of the items that came up would be to contact them via certified letter with a dispute and follow that up with a non-disclosure payment plan, and finally after completeion of payment, dispute with the CRA to have the items removed. Does this sound like the way i should be approaching this? I have done quite a bit of reading on this site and i am glad to have come across this info before i just started paying stuff and being stuck with the negative remarks on my credit.
OK after doing some more reading tonight, i think i am getting a better understanding of the process and unearthing more questions in the process. I have 3 collection accounts and 2 charge off's listed on the only report i have so far. The 3 collection accounts are all listed with Collection agency's and the 2 charge off's with the same original creditor. Being very new to this i am sorry if my back to back postings are out of line, but i just want to get some clarification on a few things. If i plan on going directly to the OC to settle the account in exchange for non-disclosure, Should i even bother Validating the debts with the CA's? or is there reasoning behind validating first that i am not seeing. Thanks again for your response so far, i look forward to hearing/learing more.
When dealing with CAs, DV should be a step in the process you never skip. You need to protect your rights under the FDCPA and make sure that the company trying to collect from you is the one you really owe. If the debt has been sold by the OC to the CA, then you won't be able to go directly to the OC to try and settle. They'll just redirect you back to the CA because they have no interest in the debt anymore, and the charge off will remain as is on your credit reports. Oh, and it sounds like the DOE has just transferred your student loans to a special division that collects overdue accounts. I would contact them to find out what your options are.
Thank you for the Response!! Is there any way to tell by the report if the CA has bought the debt? or if it is just acting on behalf of the OC. None of the collection accounts listed with CA's have a charge off status. So i am thinking i should be ok to Contact the OC on those three. The 2 with charge off status on them are listed by the OC only anyways so i will have to deal with them no matter what. What should be my first point of contact with an OC to be sure they have not sold the debt and will work with me? a DV? or go right with the payment for non-disclosure?
You can't DV the OC. DV is only for debt collectors. It's often difficult to tell if a debt has been sold from your credit reports alone because it may just say "transferred or sold". However, you can find out what the situation is by contacting the OC. They should be able to tell you if they simply have someone collecting on their behalf or if they've sold the debt and are done with it.
