THANK YOU EVERYONE! +200 Points in 5 months!

[thrillsoft]

I just wanted to write to thank everyone who's responded to my threads as well as everyone else's threads (I've read thousands).

When I started my credit repair in September of last year. I had 6 collections, 1 write-off and 6 tradelines showing a total of 15 late payments.

As of February of this year have 28 tradelines total, 12 open, 0 collections, 0 write-offs and only 2 tradelines showing a total of 3 late payments (all 30-day lates with the most recent being over 3 years ago).

Most importantly, my "real" FICO scores were all hovering around the 547 mark when I started (give or take a few points) and as of last month my "real" FICO scores were/are: 702, 721 and 741. That's nearly a 200 POINT BUMP on one of them in only 5 months.

The kicker is that I have all my cards paid off, but they still are showing a 45% utilization. When I run the simulation at MyFICO.com and punch in "What if I pay off all my credit cards" it tells me that my score SHOULD BE 780-805! (I've already paid off my cards, they just don't show a zero balance on my credit reports yet)

What a swing! It was definitely a lot of hard work and I think I used just about every trick everyone has tried on here and I must say I got more than my fair share of luck (the ones that I thought would be toughest just fell off on the first dispute). For the rest, I had to use a combination of disputes, phone calls, goodwill letters, ITS letters, etc. But one by one, they all got with my program. I negotiated one pay-for-delete with CitiCards (something everyone said was impossible, but I wrote to the right people and had the right story to tell and SMACK! They offered it to ME!

To everyone just starting or even feeling like they're at the end of their rope... DON'T GIVE UP! Yes, it is a lot of hard work, but so is paying your bills on time. If you don't have the stamina to see it through, you probably won't be able to keep your good credit once you get it. So just consider the process as exercise for your brand new credit life.

I just wrote a contract for my new waterfront home and am approved at 3 different banks for 103% financing @ 6% (even after the new strict guidelines put in place as of last week).

I also just bought a new car (I had to after moving from Manhattan to FL without a car) and was approved through several banks before even walking into the finance office (I mean that the banks had already called back the finance gal and gave her specific approvals for me with a specific rate and she showed me the approvals and told me exactly who my lender was going to be the minute I sat down). Took less than 10 minutes.

6 months ago, in and effort to start rebuilding my credit I applied to several credit card companies and was turned down for all the good ones. B of A did offer me a secured card, but that was after all but one of my collections and my charge-off were already deleted. However, 2 months ago I went to Las Vegas and I'm no dummie so I left all my cards at home except 1. Well, I ran out of money half way through so I called the number for the 1 card I had with me and asked for a CLI and they said "how much would you like?" I said, "How about $2,000?". In an instant the CSR said "Of coarse. You should wait about 20 minutes before your new limit appears in the system." (I did pay off the card as soon as I got home)

How nice it is to have good credit. I hurt mine when I was 18 and always thought repair was impossible. I wish I had found this board a long time ago.

Thanks again everyone! Hang in there, it's worth it!

[TheRoadBack]

I just wanted to write to thank everyone who's responded to my threads as well as everyone else's threads (I've read thousands).

When I started my credit repair in September of last year. I had 6 collections, 1 write-off and 6 tradelines showing a total of 15 late payments.

As of February of this year have 28 tradelines total, 12 open, 0 collections, 0 write-offs and only 2 tradelines showing a total of 3 late payments (all 30-day lates with the most recent being over 3 years ago).

Most importantly, my "real" FICO scores were all hovering around the 547 mark when I started (give or take a few points) and as of last month my "real" FICO scores were/are: 702, 721 and 741. That's nearly a 200 POINT BUMP on one of them in only 5 months.

The kicker is that I have all my cards paid off, but they still are showing a 45% utilization. When I run the simulation at MyFICO.com and punch in "What if I pay off all my credit cards" it tells me that my score SHOULD BE 780-805! (I've already paid off my cards, they just don't show a zero balance on my credit reports yet)

What a swing! It was definitely a lot of hard work and I think I used just about every trick everyone has tried on here and I must say I got more than my fair share of luck (the ones that I thought would be toughest just fell off on the first dispute). For the rest, I had to use a combination of disputes, phone calls, goodwill letters, ITS letters, etc. But one by one, they all got with my program. I negotiated one pay-for-delete with CitiCards (something everyone said was impossible, but I wrote to the right people and had the right story to tell and SMACK! They offered it to ME!

To everyone just starting or even feeling like they're at the end of their rope... DON'T GIVE UP! Yes, it is a lot of hard work, but so is paying your bills on time. If you don't have the stamina to see it through, you probably won't be able to keep your good credit once you get it. So just consider the process as exercise for your brand new credit life.

I just wrote a contract for my new waterfront home and am approved at 3 different banks for 103% financing @ 6% (even after the new strict guidelines put in place as of last week).

I also just bought a new car (I had to after moving from Manhattan to FL without a car) and was approved through several banks before even walking into the finance office (I mean that the banks had already called back the finance gal and gave her specific approvals for me with a specific rate and she showed me the approvals and told me exactly who my lender was going to be the minute I sat down). Took less than 10 minutes.

6 months ago, in and effort to start rebuilding my credit I applied to several credit card companies and was turned down for all the good ones. B of A did offer me a secured card, but that was after all but one of my collections and my charge-off were already deleted. However, 2 months ago I went to Las Vegas and I'm no dummie so I left all my cards at home except 1. Well, I ran out of money half way through so I called the number for the 1 card I had with me and asked for a CLI and they said "how much would you like?" I said, "How about $2,000?". In an instant the CSR said "Of coarse. You should wait about 20 minutes before your new limit appears in the system." (I did pay off the card as soon as I got home)

How nice it is to have good credit. I hurt mine when I was 18 and always thought repair was impossible. I wish I had found this board a long time ago.

Thanks again everyone! Hang in there, it's worth it!

Thrill,

It is indeed just that, a thrill to hear stories like yours!! Congrats to you on all of your hard work! It definately pays off! And to anyone new reading this post it CAN BE DONE!!!! Read the stickies, then read some more and you will be sitting on top of the world like thrill is now!!

Once again, Congratsl!!!!

[Determined1]

Thats awesome thrill! I am an ex-NY'r who also moved to FL and also had headaches with BellSouth / CBCS. How did you make out with the lawsuit?

[momof5]

Wow........!!!

[thrillsoft]

Thats awesome thrill! I am an ex-NY'r who also moved to FL and also had headaches with BellSouth / CBCS. How did you make out with the lawsuit?

Never had to file. I did spend a few days typing one up. Called the "Outside Collections Group" at BellSouth and told them my story. Got an affidavit from my old landlord stating that I never lived there during the billing period. Affidavit from my girlfriend stating that I called them several times in the months after I moved and she could hear me screaming at them to quit billing me after I left.

Told them that I had these things as well as a complaint drafted ready to file in Federal Court if they did not remove immediately and BAM! gone in 1 day. They never actually told me that they were going to delete or instruct the CA to delete and I never heard back from them at all. They never told me what they did. But once it was deleted, I didn't see much point in filing. I still have all the paper-word in case it comes back. But it's been over 2 months now and I haven't heard anything about it again.

You just have to get really tough with them. They'll never admit to anything.

[lyle7289]

Holy 700 club batman....

GREAT JOB!!!!!!!!!!!

[thrillsoft]

I won't go into the details on every single delete, but I'll give brief overview of what seemed to work for me (and why luck was involved)...

I started with phone disputes with the CRAs. I know that people on here say not to do that, but on other board there was a poster's "guide to the dispute process" and she suggested starting initially with phone disputes to "see what just comes off easily". That worked for me. I had several "duplicate" collections that just came right off within a month that way.

Then I "1-2 punched", the rest. Lost a couple more that way. The ones that were left, I did the "1-2 punch" again but also wrote letters to PlanetFeedback (Citi office of the President responded that way) and all the execs I could research an email for. As well as calling everyone from Customer Service to the President himself and everyone in between. That was a very slow process and A LOT of work, but eventually you find the right person willing to help. Lost the last of my really bad ones that way.

That just left me with a bunch of lates. Online disputes for those and they started falling off as well.

Now down to only 3 late payments showing on my 12-year CR with over 28 accounts. I have one card that still shows 2 30-day lates (most recent 3 years ago). And one card that shows 1 30-day late (4 years ago). All the rest show nothing but on-time payments.

I definitely feel lucky. Some won't have such good luck. But also, I know that if I hadn't put in all the work (I'm talking HUNDREDS of hours, it was an obsession for me), my scores would still be in the low 500's. So it is definitely a combination of luck and hard work and depending how much luck you get, that will only determine how much hard work you have to put in. But I was determined that there was nothing that was "unbeatable" on my report.

[chilton1]

:notworthy:Congratulations. I am so happy for you.

[thrillsoft]

Also, just to put in perspective how much it really costs to have bad credit...

I'm buying a house for $450K. I just bought a car for $28K. I calculated the difference between what the car/house would cost me with bad credit (higher rate) vs. with my current scores. It's a difference of over $600/mo.

My car payment is only $497/mo. MY BRAND NEW NISSAN MURANO IS BEING PAID FOR ME DUE TO MY CREDIT SCORES!

IT'S WORTH IT!!! STICK WITH IT!!!