debt settlement

Your milage will vary. No two people are ever alike.

I agree with Soaplady

My 2 cents
In my job I pull credit all the time on people and no 2 peoples credit are alike.
I know this though - If you pay attention to your report and are diligent in disputing inaccuries with experian you could make much better in 1 - 2 years.

My advice if you can get a secured (auto) loan before you go into debt settlement.
And pay it perfect - Then you will bring a great piece of credit thru this tough time.


Another thing - Even experian wont disclose how the credit scores are calculated

it definitely help us that we had a home equity loan that we paid on time during our settlement process. it helped keep us around the high 500's and when our settlement process was over we recouped pretty quickly by getting a few cards and charging and paying it off the very next month. But this summer we did some remodeling and i charged and couldnt pay off (plus replaced a furnace last fall that i could pay off) the cc companies cut my limits in half(and closed one completely still with a balance) thanks to the economy and now my score is going down the crapper again. it honestly is a never ending battle to keep a good score. but having a secured loan will keepyou from plummeting completely and will really help when you are done

You were able to get a new credit card after settlement? Amazing.... I have been paying my car loan on time and it's due to be paid off mid year 2010. So what you're saying if that this loan will help my credit score in spite of the settlements? and I have a few small credit cards that I'm on a payment plan with - will that help too?

Yes , aubrey I think that if you can pull a auto loan thru the settlement process that will help you keep your score up - Try to keep your credit damage to a short time frame like 6 months to 1 year (the settlement period). The banks that I talk to on a regular basis like to see a one time event that caused the bad credit ..... for exp........... (we lost our business..... or I went thru a divorce ............ ). They dont like to see cronic bad credit over multiple years - that does not reflect very well . So just start fresh after settlement and try to build credit maybe with a secured credit card and be perfect from that point on !