Credit repair?
We've been working on our credit for a home loan. My husbands score started at a 560. We settled with a collection agency and i have paid down 2 of his credit cards to $50. The collection agency so far has only reported the difference of our settlement. Supposedly sometime this week, they are supposed to report the full balance as paid in full (because of some kind of waiting, process time) Anyway, we also started working with a credit repair agency a few weeks ago. And supposedly, they have already removed 13 inquiries. Score is now at a 591. That 31 points! We need to be at a 620. So at least another 29 points. We are also thinking of doing a rapid rescore because of the collection agency. With credit repair and rapid rescore working for us, do you think we can get the score to a 620, and how much longer do you think it'll take????
Public Comments
- What are you doing to repair your credit? Paying early or on time will affect your credit score. Borrow $1000 from the bank, stick it in a sock, and use it to pay back the loan. Consistency. And don't believe what they tell you you can afford in a house. Their estimates are usually way off. Stick to what you know you can afford.
- It possible, but there's some things that you should be aware of. Removing the inquiries and settling the collection didn't raise the score, getting the the balances of the credit cards down to $50 is what really did it. If the collection is older than 2 years, by settling as paid, you just created new activity when the balance is reported as paid in full. That doesn't help your score. The account still remains which has already damaged your score to begin with. Paying it at this point will only make the report look cosmetically better, not improve your score. The only way to have done that with the collection would've been to negotiate a "pay for delete", which is a payment in exchange for removing it from the report. Also, inquiries that are closer to 2 years old, aren't hurting your score anymore than they are now, so if they remove the inquiries, that's cosmetic as well. I hate to say it but it was a waste of money using the credit repair service and settling for the collection.
- It is always a good idea to get all of the information that the agencies have availableabout you. Unless you start from at least a position of maximum information you will be at a major diadvantage. A good idea is to get free information to see if that leads you to your desired outcome. A very helpful resource for me has been http://www.creditrepairbible.info/subscribe.html
- I used a credit repair service but this one provided me legal representation. After I ordered my credit report I did my dispute through their website and this was back in January. By late February I began getting letters in the mail. Experian was late getting back to me but I wont complain because i had stuff removed. I had 2 collections removed from Experian. Tranunion wasnt reporing as much but I did get one collection removed and a few late payments removed as well so it worked for me. I used http://www.creditlawgroup.com
* Some answers may have been provided by Yahoo! Answers.