I have several collections on my account that are 4-5 years old. Can a collection this old possibly be removed by sending a debt validation letter to the collection agency? I don’t recall a lot of this debt, but because I was not credit savvy, I did not know that I could request them to validate the debt within the first 30dys of my receipt of the letters from them. It also appears as if the same debts may be on my credit report more than once, especially my student loans! Please help me understand debt validation and how I could benefit and not pay something that I do not actually owe to these agencies. Thanks

Sherri (more…)

Hi Paul,

First, I wanted to thank you for offering such a great site for those of us who are faced with broken credit.  Your site and its information truly is a breath of fresh air for all of us who are so very frustrated with the seemingly impossible endeavor of repairing our credit.

Now, to the question at hand. . . In 2004, I left the country for 2 years to do missionary work overseas.  Before I left, I informed Citibank (my student loan agency) of my plans, and my loans were put on a deferment.  This deferment was good for 1 year, and was supposed to be renewed by myself after that time.  About a year into my missionary work, though, my mother was diagnosed, and later passed away, with cancer.  During that trying time, many things were neglected, including my student loans. 

Then, Citibank sent me a letter in 11/26/05 that my loans were going to default to Edfund if I failed to take action.  So, I wrote to Citibank on 12/2/05 & requested additional deferment time.  They granted my request on 1/6/06.  However, in the 30 days it took for them to process the deferment, Edfund purchased my student loans and qualified them as defaulted.  I then had to request that Citibank do a “courtesy repurchase” of my loans, which they did.  Citibank pulled my loans out of default & set me up on my original payment terms. I have maintained a current payment history ever since.

The problem is, when I just checked my credit report, the reporting for these loans has not been updated since 12/05, & they are being reported as “Claim filed with government for insured portion of balance on loan”.  Since they have been repurchased, and I have been current with my payments for the past year, what is the best approach with Citibank to have this information corrected?  I understand I made a major mistake, and will most likely have to pay the consequences of this for a long time.  However, I do want creditors to be aware of my recent good history, as well, & not just the bad.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Henry (more…)

All of your Credit Repair, Mortgage, & Stump the Experts (although ‘experts’ is debatable) are in the HELP CENTER.

Read, learn, write, mail, negotiate, write, mail and Raise Your Credit Score!

Hello!  I have been reading the comments on this site & I first wanted to thank you for all the helpful advise & articles.  Second, I was hoping to get some advise for my own situation.  I am hoping to be able to buy a house next year but I know that with my current 589 score I won’t be able to.  The things that are killing me are the student loans that I had.  I have 4 different accounts that went to collections.  Now, these were paid off in full in August of last year & I requested a letter of satisfaction from them.  In the letter it says that if the debt has been rehabilitated, the loan is deleted from my credit history.  Yet, here we are almost a year later & I still see them show up on my credit report, both the accounts & the collections.  Before contacting them & sounding like an idiot, I just wanted to make sure that I am correct in saying that those things should be removed from my credit history.
Also, my name is incorrect on two out of the three CRAs.  Does that make a difference?

Thank you SO MUCH in advance!

Carlos (more…)

Hi – I just paid off $25,000 in defaulted student loans and am thinking of doing a rapid rescore.  What is your opinion regarding my credit score – do you think it will go up? and how much (ball park)  Thanks, your the best – Pam (more…)

I have 6-7 collections. All legit, all mine.
I have 1 student loan that I’m paying on currently I have 1 student loan that went into default and in 3 months will no longer be “default”  What are my first steps to repair credit? Should I get a secured credit card to build credit, should I pay off the collections, should I dispute collections?

Thanks.
Nathan (more…)

I was reading the blogs about re-aging.  I understand that to mean that some credit card companies will re-age the account and bring it current.  Does this apply to Student Loan creditor?

Lynn (more…)

My credit report has been affected by a medical bill that my father was supposed to pay (as stated in a divorce decree) the amount of the bill is $301. I was told not to pay it yet and dispute the bill, using the decree as proof I was not to be billed for this emergency room stay in 2005. I spoke with the FTC on the phone today- and they said that the credit bureau does not care that my father is supposed to pay the bill. The fact remains that my name is on it, its past due and therefore I should pay.

I am trying to take out a loan to pay for the rest of my college education (one class left! I got a full time job just so I could get a income-to debt ratio). I have been turned down by a few banks (including salliemae) because I already have a few loans (3 private and 2 Federal Student loans) 3 are in forbearance. I plan to consolidate IMMEDIATELY after I get this last loan so I can get my BA and get a raise where I work.

 I am taking the loan out with my employer’s federal credit union because I was told that would be my best bet now. I disputed the hospital bill online with experian, who returned with another credit item of $41 dollars for a library book that I apparently took out in 2002. I am not sure whether to pay first, then dispute or first dispute, then pay. I am applying for this loan as soon as April 10th – I would assume  there would be no way to remove any negative items on my report. The last time I checked my score a year ago it was 550. If youre only supposed to look at your score/report once a year how do all these people know they have raised their score within 2 months?

I also dont know if the idea about me not being responsible for the medical bill is valid. Please let me know what the best course of action would be. Also, whne I apply for this loan my father (who has bad credit) has offered to co-sign. Would this ultimately hurt my chances? You seem to give straight answers compared to the ones I’ve been getting. So thank you in advance for this service. Also feel free to let me know if I have little to no shot at getting this loan. I was told it would cost extra to view my credit score-and I dont know what the cut-off score is for this loan anyway). My parent’s credit is a disaster and it has greatly affected my life. I dont want that for myself so I am trying really hard to learn as much as I can to improve my score and interest rates. Please let me know if you have any advice for this situation.

Clark (more…)

Hi Paul,

I have a few questions, all relating to my horrible (530) credit score.

1) I have 4 student loans, all with different lenders.  2 of them were in deferment until January, when I began repaying them.  The other 2 are in grace period until June (I graduated in December).  From a credit improvement standpoint, would it be better to consolidate or leave them as-is?  I will be able to make the payments regardless, but I want to make sure I do whatever is going to help improve my credit score the most.  Or, will it have no effect on my score either way (as long as I am making payments on time)?

2) My husband and I have been working to pay off some new collections (less than 24 months old).  We have paid off 4-5 small ones so far (less than $50).  I pulled our reports from one bureau and none of these small collections, nor most of the larger ones for that matter, are on either of our reports.  My question is, should we be negotiating pay-for-delete arrangements prior to paying off these collections, even if we aren’t sure if they are showing up on our reports?  Or, should we pull our other two reports and if the collections are not on any of them not worry about the pfd?  We are just trying to pay them and get them behind us as quickly as possible.

3) We are committing several hundred dollars per month toward paying off these collections.  Meanwhile, we each have two credit cards that are currently at or near the maximum.  We will no longer be using the cards until we pay them down, but our current plan is to pay the minimum payments each month.  Would it make more sense (and improve our scores more) if we took some of the money away from paying off the collections and paid down the credit cards faster?  Our total CC debt is about $3000.

4) We have several older collections in addition to our ‘list’ of new ones.  For right now we are ignoring these until we get the newer things taken care of and our credit cards paid down.  Most, if not all of them will be dropping from our reports in the next 24 months so we may not even get to them.  Is this the right strategy?  From everything I have read they are not affecting our scores as much as newer accounts, is this correct?

Thanks for all of your help, and for this great web site. 

Jodi (more…)

Great site. I read a few pages and bookmarked the site on the 3 pcs I have at home.

I have a median credit score of 562. Three things currently affect my score.

Firstly, I had been delinquent on 4 student loans but I consolidated and am current now.

The thing is I checked my credit report and I see the 4 delinquent loans being listed by the guanrantors and servicers about 7 times. In one case a $4000 total loan was reported twice as $4000 then once as two $2000 loans.

Secondly, one other student loan (different from those listed) was delinquent but I got an agreement with the lender that removed the derogatory info after 12 consecutive on time payments. The collection agency made an error in december by reporting the loan as delinquent again even though I became ‘current’ in september.

Lastly, I also have a collection account being reported by a JDB to two CRAs as being opened in 2003 then to another as being opened in 2006. The debt is from an overdraft dispute with a bank in 2000. I withdrew my money and called and closed the account but they were still taking a monthly fee for having a low balance, this resulted in overdraft fees that they wanted me to pay.

What should be my course of action in attempting to boost my score within the next 6 months? I hope to purchase a small house.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

-Jeff (more…)