My Own Credit Problems - Help!
Date: Mon, 01/08/2007 - 13:25
Ok, I'll start at the beginning - Back in 2001 I had a rough time and stupidly I let a lot of bills go over without paying them. 3 CC's, a couple bills and a few late payments on a car. But I have had a school loan for $2000 that has been defered because I went back to school, and shows ok on my report.
So go back about 2 years - I ran my credit to start to fix things. Somethings I got cleared up - I paid a $2500 debt from Discover off at about half. It was really about $1000 and got racked up with late charges, penalties, collections etc. I did not know at the time that I should ask for it to say "paid as agreed" so it says "settled" or something along those lines. I also cleared a couple bills that were not mine.
So there was still another 2-3000 dollars in debt on my report and I ran low on funds. Now I decided to take a loan off my 401k for $3000 (it gets paid back to myself, hard to lose, after all it is my money). So I ran my report again a few days ago. I want to keep the school loan on there since it is an easy payment and is a good open account to keep rolling. And i have one credit card now that was a student card at a super high rate and a $300 limit that I want to keep for now. But the rest I want gone.
So the specifics of the ones I want to get rid of...
I have a Palisades Collection for $548, but it says closed for EX and open for TU. I received a letter from an attorney that appears to be trying to collect this debt now. It is originally from AT&T.
An APEX Asset Management for $377 that appears open for TU and closed for EX.
A Capital One debt of $1315 which says closed and charge-off for all agencies. I have received letters from various collections places over time, but they do not appear on my report. I believe the original amount due was $701 though.
My Discover mentioned earlier that was settled.
The car loan which was for $8500 and is paid in full and marked as such, but with some 30 day lates peppered in there.
A CC debt for $945 that was through the same place as the car loan that I still owe which was closed and written as a charge off.
$104 for North American Debt Collection for a bill.
So now, I realize there a re a few things that are not on my report anymore that were on the first one - things I never settled. Also, there are things that are new. All are my debts I believe. AT&T was a dispute on amount but I did owe them money. I need to get these cleared soon, I may need to have an possible employer run a credit check and I dont want to have any of this ruin my shot. It will show, but at least if I can show it was paid...
So now what? I have only $3000 for work with and not a ton of time. My score is a 553 with Ex (poor), 553 with Eq (poor) and 541 with TU (very poor).
Do I worry about the things that don't appear anymore? How do I distribute $3000 over more than $3000 worth of debt? Basically any advice on getting this straight will be of tremendous help!
Thanks in advance!!!!!!
The community will give you loads of suggestions and you will fi
The community will give you loads of suggestions and you will find it very helpful. But talk to a debt counselor also for professional advice. He will let you know the best payment options and the accounts that need your immediate attention. It might be possible that there are some items in your credit report that are not shown with correct info. Maybe, those accounts need to be disputed with the particular CRA because they are not showing your account in the correct manner. Also, keep a watch on those items that are close to your reporting time frame. If you are facing financial problems in paying all of them, some of the accounts that are close to the reporting time frame can wait. Give immediate attention to those that are recently defaulted.
I don't think my debt needs professional help as most of it is m
I don't think my debt needs professional help as most of it is my own doing I believe.
When I call to speak about paying of the debt collectors do I tell them that I will settle if they make it say paid as agreed?
You have to smartly negotiate with the debt collector on your de
You have to smartly negotiate with the debt collector on your debts. Make sure that you get the deal in writing. Once you have everything sorted out, make your payments. The collector will be reporting to the creditor and the credit bureaus after the account is paid. Get that in writing.
