My Story - A Happy Ending... Almost (Before and After)
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Posted by Steve (24.95.166.213) on April 11, 2002 at 12:11:35:
First I want to thank Linda and company for the excellent advice that they give. I found this site when I first began my endeavor to clean up my credit reports back in February. It all started on February 6th of this year when I had a mortgage prequalification done in preparation to start looking for houses. I was shocked when I saw some of the stuff on the reports the finance guy obtained. While I still was pre-approved I was not satisfied with the rate.
I found out at that time that my scores were:
Equifax: 686
TransUnion: 674
Experian: 641 I started going after my derogs first. I had 2 serious ones, an old account from Amex had resurfaced on TransUnion and Equifax years after they had agreed to delete it which also showed as a charge-off with a balance due. The other was from a CA related to a cellular account from 1997 which was on Experian and TransUnion. It took a couple phone calls to Amex to find out what was going on, in the end it was because the settlement from 1995 was never recorded by thier CA. I obtained a letter of settlement and asked about having the entries deleted, but was told they couldn't do that because as far as they were concerned it had been reported all along. To my surprise a few hours later I received a call from the woman at Amex who told me the entries would be removed afterall, but she didn't know why. I didn't care, I was happy. I then telephoned the CA who handled my wireless account. After working my way up the ladder of CSR's and supervisors I was transfered to a supervisor who actually seemed sympathetic. (Turns out he was from my hometown or Syracuse and was a big SU fan). After a 10 minute conversation about sports he told me no problem, the entries would be deleted. I then moved on to my last less than serious derog, a Sears account that I closed a few years ago that had a couple 150+ day delinquencies. I wrote to Sears and filed disputes with all 3 CRA's stating the late payment history was incorrect. I had letters stating my account was current (after completing their reage program in 97) when I was being reported as delinquent. In the end Experian and TransUnion verified the reported info to be correct, but Equifax removed all of the late payments. I still plan to follow up on how Sears is reporting to the other two CRAs. I still have 3 positive tradelines from my credit union that were deleted from Experian when I disputed them. I did so because the opening dates were all reported to 5.15.2001 because my credit union screwed up the reporting when I took out a new car loan last year which wiped out 6 years of loan payments that had a perfect payment history. That info is still pending correction. So where do I stand now? My scores have drastically improved. As of today they are:
Equifax: 745
TransUnion: 726
Experian: 660 I hope that my Experian will top 700 when those missing trade-lines get re-reported. In addition to disputing the negative info I have also made an effort to pay down my credit card balances. I originally had 31% of combined credit card limits available, I'm now at 49% and climbing. The moral of my story, it's a long and sometimes difficult road to clearing your reports, but with patience and perseverance you can prevail. This site has been a valuable asset in helping me get started and I will continue to visit here on a regular basis. One more tip that I do have for those who can afford it. Experian and Equifax both have credit manager subscriptions available for $79 and $69 respectively, which allow you unlimited access to your credit report and score for 1 year. It might seem a little steep but considering that you'll probably end up paying for at least 3 credit reports from each agency at $13 a piece (with score), the high cost of the subscriptions doesn't seem so bad.
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