Credit Repair War

New Credit Repair Blog - Future Updates

2007-12-07T10:27:00.000-06:00

I will be moving my blog, all future updates will be made at Credit Repair - Self Help. Also don't forget to check out my other blog concerning credit repair at Do It Yourself Credit Repair, this blog talks about some of the methods used here to repair my credit in more depth. Be sure to bookmark these blogs so that you can find them and check in periodically.

New Credit Accounts Result in Instant Credit Score Increase

2007-12-07T07:20:00.001-06:00

I stated in a recent post that building new credit is an essential part of repairing your credit and building your credit score. I am happy to report that I am seeing the results of this already. I checked my credit scores and am delighted to see some nice increases with only 2 of my 3 new accounts reporting so far. Here is the current state of my credit scores:

FAKO Scores: TU - 646, EX - 613, EQ - 634
FICO Scores: TU - 580, EX - 658, EQ - 605

You will notice my TU FICO score is down quite a bit, this is due to my mortgage inaccurately reporting information. You have to stay on top of your credit all the time. I will be working to rectify this situation. To this point I am very pleased with my progress.

Building New Credit

2007-11-29T20:33:00.000-06:00

In addition to getting rid of the negative tradelines to increase your credit score, you must also establish new positive tradelines to start building some more positive credit history. Early on in my credit repair progress I applied for and received a couple of sub prime cards or credit rebuilder cards, the first of which was Orchard Bank MC. Initially they gave me a $500 credit limit, it is now $700. I also applied for First Premiere, and they gave a $300 credit limit. I do not recommend the latter of the 2, unless you just can't get a card through Orchard. Both cards have annual fees. Also another card that is fairly easy to get is the Hooter's MC, your credit scores should be upper 500's for this card. They gave me a $1000 credit limit and it does have fees, but also has a rewards program.

Recently I applied to my credit union for their Visa card. Figured I have a long history with them, what the heck and give it a shot. They gave me a $6000 credit limit, no annual fees. They also offer a MC, so I applied for that as well, another $6000 credit limit. This allowed me to close the First Premiere card with high fees and high interest with a low credit limit. Served its purpose by giving me 6 months good history.

I discovered that if you have scores in the upper 500's to low 600's that Kay's and Jared, basically any Sterling Bank creditors, are fairly easy to get. I got a Kay's at $5000 credit limit. One thing to note is that all these cards share the same credit limit, but it will show as separate tradelines on your credit report at whatever credit limit they give you.

The immediate result will be a slight decrease in credit scores, new accounts and the inquiries will hurt you short term. The long term effect is that you are now building a good utilization ratio. You want to be using less than 25% of your available credit at all times. Plus now I have some positives to build up a good history to offset the derogatory accounts that I may not be able to get rid of.

Last Collection Account - Lawsuit Update

2007-11-12T16:08:00.000-06:00

One more collection account to go until they are all completely gone from my credit reports. This one will be litigated in the courts (Paragon Way / Collins). After speaking to my lawyer, he feels as though they have a very weak case because the only evidence they have produced in the discovery process is a statement from 2003 with my name and an old address on it. Nothing to prove the account is mine. I have come a long way in a relatively short time...100 point increase in my FICO scores and down to 3 charge-off accounts and 1 collection account. Folks this can be done and is relatively simple to do once you become an informed consumer.

I am writing a letter now to WFFNB / Victoria Secret to ask for them to produce some documentation proving this account is mine. I am sure my Ex-wife opened this account in my name (she was good at this I'm coming to find out). There is no way in hell they will find my signature on anything concerning this account.

Credit Secrets Bible

Another Collection Agency Bites The Dust

2007-11-07T08:19:00.000-06:00

Finally, CACV removed the tradeline from all 3 credit reporting agencies. This is big, these guys are tough to get rid of. I am still showing a Paragon Way account on my TransUnion credit report that was supposed to be removed two months ago. I have continued my dispute with TransUnion on this but they keep rejecting it. I am going to have to get tough with TransUnion to get rid of it I guess. I am writing up a dispute letter to them now and going to send it off it should be gone because I know they sent the transmittal because I have a copy of it. I am now down to really only having one collection account left and that is the other Paragon Way account that I am being sued for.

Update on the lawsuit, well really nothing to report there. They filed on me, I answered and filed a counter suit, they asked for a 2 week extension to answer. This is probably good news meaning they don't have squat.

Some other things I need to work on are a Victoria Secret account, which I can pursue directly with them now that I got their flunky collection agency off my back (Plaza). My plan is to contact them and try to file an identity theft report on this account. I am pretty sure I never opened this account, I'm also sure that it was probably my ex-wife. I also have a Chase charge-off, the one Paragon is suing me for, listed. Not sure how I am going to deal with it yet. I have an Amex charge-off also, this will probably have to be paid to get it into a "better standing", they don't fudge and they don't make deals. I will tackle this later, may end up just waiting this one out if they are not real cooperative in working out a deal.

The Victoria Secret and the AMEX are killing me because they report the charge-off every single month and it shows as a recent derogatory account that just kills my score. Got to do something with these.

Updated Credit scores (FAKO)
TU - 638
EX - 621
EQ - 598

Credit Repair - Erase Bad credit!

Credit Score Continues to Rise

2007-10-15T06:38:00.000-06:00

I'm still waiting on a couple of collection accounts to be removed from my credit reports. The leg work is done, sometimes it isn't as fast as you would like, but it could take up to 60 days to delete a tradeline. Here are my latest updated FAKO Scores:

TU - 638 EX - 588 EQ - 584

These are not the FICO scores, waiting for these 2 collection accounts to go away before I purchase new scores.

Credit Secrets Bible

Sued By Collection Agency

2007-10-08T08:05:00.000-06:00

I have been up to this point, having great success at getting negative items removed from my credit report. I recently ran into a little snag. I had two collections with Paragon Way, I was not getting much cooperation from them in getting them removed from my credit report. I decided to file a complaint with the BBB, this got a response from them immediately on both accounts. On one of the accounts, an old Dell account (Citi) they deleted from credit reports, they did not have good documentation to back up their claims. The second account which is a Chase account, apparently they had already turned this matter over to their attorney. I received a lawsuit from them concerning this account. Naturally, this is a major setback to my campaign, all is not lost though. Most of the time these creepy collection agencies file suit in hopes that they will not be challenged and they will get a default judgment against you, this gives them lots of leverage. I on the other hand will not lie down, I consulted with a NACA attorney and not only have we responded to the lawsuit, but we have counter sued as well for their violations of Federal Law. We will see how this goes from here.

On a more positive note, another collection account that appeared on my credit report was from CACV, nasty collection agency from what I hear. This account was linked to a Chase account, not the same one as referenced above. I disputed the Chase account on my credit report because I had no idea what this account was for. Chase ended up sending me an affidavit to sign stating this was identity theft. The same time I was dealing with Chase, I sent a validation letter to CACV. I signed the affidavit from Chase, since I did not know where this account came from. CACV ended up sending me their statement, bill of sale, and some statements from Chase, and a letter from their attorney. I knew right away when I saw the statements from Chase that this was NOT my account. I contacted Chase over the phone and they stated that they have recalled the account from the collection agency and they deleted it from my credit reports. CACV however had not deleted the account. I called this attorney for CACV and stated my case, he did tell me that CACV has closed the case and account and should be deleting it from the credit reports. As of this writing it is still showing up. I am sending a letter to CACV to delete the account. Once this is deleted I will only have one collection account left and that is the one for which I am being sued.

Protect yourself from identity theft

More Credit Report Deletions - Better Business Bureau Complaint Against Collection Agency

2007-08-12T07:58:00.000-06:00

It has been awhile since an update has taken place and that is because there has been a lot of waiting on disputes, and responses. Finally I have some news. I have another deletion from my TU credit report, it is an account from DSRM (Valero), it was a negative listing showing as a collection. I was only listed as an authorized user on this account, I disputed it with TU and EQ which were the only two it showed up on. It has been removed from TU still waiting for EQ to give their results of my last 2 disputes. Also TU finally deleted the West Asset Collection account that I disputed. Also I received positive results from my validation e-mail to LVNV, they deleted the tradeline off of the credit reports as well. I am making slow but steady progress. Some of these others are going to be real boogers, and am pretty much having to wait for the statue of limitations to be up before attempting to remove or settle to prevent being sued.

On a not so positive note, Paragon Way has decided to ignore me it seems. So yesterday I filed a complaint with the BBB against them for violating several State and Federal regulations. I will wait a couple of weeks and see what the outcome of this is. I intend to really pressure them by filing with the Attorney General of Texas as well for their blatant violations. Here is a copy of my complaint to the BBB:

Complaint Description:
"On 6/14/07 I contacted Paragon Way via their website concerning 2 accounts that are showing up on my credit reports, at the same time I disputed with the 3 credit reporting agencies. They verified the accounts as accurate to the credit agencies. I never received anything in writing from them until 7/11/07 which was nothing more than another request for payment on ONE of the accounts. On 7/16/07 I sent a letter to them concerning the two accounts, again asking for validation of these debts. This was sent certified mail. I have received no response from them concerning either of these debts. They are continuing to update their information with the credit reporting agencies, without providing proper validation to me. They are in violation of several State and Federal Laws. They have failed to notify me after reporting the negative tradeline on the the credit reports within 5 days. They have continued to attempt collection of a debt even while in dispute. They have failed to respond to the validation request within 30 days or delete the tradeline. They are attempting to collect interest without an agreement. They are attempting to collect a debt under 2 separate names (TX Collect) as it appears on one of my credit reports. Account #'s under dispute are xxxxx, and xxxxx.

Your Desired Resolution:
Deletion of tradelines on all credit reporting agency reports, agree to close out all accounts and not attempt recollection of noted accounts, and to agree not to sell said debt to another collection agency or debt buyer."

I have heard from reading several boards that these people will go away with a BBB complaint after trying to get them to validate the debt and they fail.

Fako Scores:
TU 603 EX 571 EQ 549

FICO Scores:
TU 572 EX 618 EQ 559 (The only one that has been updated since July is EQ, will be checking them all in a few days)

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Collection Agency Attempts to Validate Debt Unsuccessfully

2007-07-19T15:45:00.000-06:00

I had initially sent a vaildation e-mail to Paragon Way, thinking they were not going to respond a couple weeks later I sent a validation letter certified mail. They responded first with a letter saying I owed them $$$$ on June 25th, then they followed that up with their "validation" which was nothing more than a computer printout of the account which was received on July 16, the very same day I sent a validation letter certified mail. When they are requested to validate they must validate this with the original creditor and verify that the person they are attempting to collect the debt from is the person that owes the debt. They did neither of these. I will wait until I get the receipt back from the certified letter and give them some time before I send a follow up letting them know that they did not in fact validate the debt.

On another note, I disputed some inquiries online with Equifax (CSC), as well as a Chase Manhattan account, and the original GEMB / Walmart account that is now being collected by LVNV. Sooooo, I also sent a validation e-mail to LVNV and a certified letter to LVNV concerning this account. I currently have a lot of disputes in progress, think it is time to sit back and wait for some of these things to unfold before I act anymore. Besides that everything left is pretty much still within Statute of Limitations and I don't want to awaken any sleeping giants.

LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention

Equifax Dispute Results - Two Negative Listings Deleted

2007-07-14T16:06:00.000-06:00

Got my dispute results from Equifax, results were the removal of West Asset and Pro Collect. I'll take it. In case you are wondering why I am only disputing a few items at a time with the credit reporting agencies instead of all at once, well if you dispute too many items at once they will put a fraud alert on your report, plus it is easier to keep track of.

I sent out a "Goodwill" letter today to my credit union with a sob story in hopes that they will remove some late payments from my report.

I also continued with adding more disputes with the Credit Reporting Agencies. I disputed an account from DSRM National Bank (Valero) in which they had me listed as an Authorized User on TransUnion and Equifax. It is illegal to report a negative item in which you did not obtain the credit. I did not ever obtain this credit, it was probably my ex-wife and she had me listed as an authorized user. I disputed an account with LVNV for a GEMB / Walmart card, never recall opening this one, this is only listed on TransUnion, in fact the GEMB / Walmart account shows as a positive on my Experian report so I will leave that one alone. Off to write some letters.

Credit Repair - Erase Bad Credit!

TransUnion and Experian Dispute Results - Several Negative Accounts Deleted

2007-07-13T09:51:00.001-06:00

I got the results from my Transunion and Experian disputes, still waiting for Equifax (CSC). The following were the results:

CACV and Paragon Way verified with the credit reporting agencies
Washington Mutual removed two late payments showing on TU
Pro Collect deleted from TU and EX
Countrywide Mortgage removed two late payments from TU and EX
Capital One changed the status to "Account closed at consumer request" TU and EX
Chase duplicate TL deleted from EX
Citibank deleted from TU and EX
Premium Asset Recovery deleted from EX
West Asset Management deleted from EX

Official FICO scores are as follows:
TU 572 EQ 529 EX 618

Please note that all other scores posted up until this time have been FAKO scores not FICO, I will be periodically checking my FICO scores every couple of months or so, otherwise they are FAKO scores.

Credit Secrets Bible

First Noticeable Credit Score Increase

2007-07-12T13:00:00.001-06:00

Not sure what exactly happened, but I checked my credit scores today and all 3 increased.
TransUnion 589, Experian 566, Equifax 549. Now for the bad news, my disputes with the credit bureaus for the Paragon Way collections came back as verified. This is not all together bad news, but means they verified the TL with the credit bureaus. This could possibly open them up to a lawsuit. Those bastards are so cocky that they sent me another collection letter, the debt is past the Statute of Limitations. Going to try something else with these folks and put some pressure on them to delete this account.

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Experian Deletes Two Negative Listings

2007-06-18T05:49:00.000-06:00

I received a letter from Experian giving me the results of my online disputes. They deleted 2 of the negative items. They deleted an old Citibank account that was showing as a charge off and deleted a collections account from Pro Collect. A result of this my Experian credit score went from 535 to 542. Credit scores are now as follows:

TransUnion 541, Experian 542, Equifax 544

I sent a debt validation e-mail to Paragon Way Collection agency on 2 accounts that are past the SOL (Statute of limitations). For now I will not proceed any further until I hear back from TransUnion and Equifax on the disputes so that I can see where to go from there. I also want to give the collection agencies that I sent e-mails to, a chance to validate the debt.

LifeLock Identity Theft Prevention

NCO Deletes Negative Listing - 3 More Collection Agencies Get E-mails

2007-06-14T13:56:00.000-06:00

Have not had much time lately to work on the credit repair situation, but I did receive a response in the form of a letter from NCO Group. They have removed the item from my credit reports, stating that while they are in compliance with the law, they would need more than the 30 days allowable to validate this account therefore they removed it from the credit reporting agencies. I checked my FICO scores and they are as follows now:

TransUnion 541; Experian 535; Equifax 544. There has been improvement.

Since I had success with this method already, I decided to try it with 3 more collection agencies. I sent a similar e-mail to West Asset Management, Premium Asset Recovery, and ProCollect Inc. Hopefully I will get similar results.

I have not heard anything on my disputes that I put in online with the credit reporting agencies. Equifax has posted comments that I am disputing the accounts, Experian and Transunion show no such comments. I was told the online dispute method doesn't work very well.

Credit Repair - Erase Bad Credit!

Outlining a Plan to Repair My Credit

2007-05-30T16:17:00.000-06:00

Today I set out to come up with an intial plan of attack. I learned that the statute of limitations for collecting on a debt in Texas is 4 years. What that means, is that any of these past due accounts that have gone beyond the 4 years from DOLA (date of last activity; last payment made) the creditor cannot legally collect this debt. The burden of having to pay these is lifted so long as you never acknowledge this debt as yours. This is not the same as being removed from your credit report, it still takes 7 years to remove your negatives from the credit reports. With this in mind I decided to identify the SOL (statute of limitations) of the negative accounts listed in my credit reports, much to my joy I found that 7 of my negatives were past the SOL. 6 negative will pass SOL within the next 6 months, and 1 of them would pass the SOL within 8 months. This is extremely good news, because by the time I get my first challenges out the way, the next group will be ready. There was 1 account that did not have enough information for me to determine the SOLA and I had no idea what it was, should be an easy challenge.

Now not everything is going to be a dispute some of the corrections will have to be through diplomacy (i.e. ass kissing). I have several accounts with my credit union that are in good standing and paid, but have several late payments. I really don't want to piss off my credit union, so I will write them a letter to ASK them to remove the late payments. Once the letter is written I will post it here as an example.

I have not gotten a response back on my e-mail that I sent to NCO Group yesterday. I hope I had the correct e-mail address. Here is the e-mail I sent to challenge this listing:

I recently reviewed my credit reports from the 3 different credit reporting agencies and have found a listing from NCO Financial Account #xxxxxxxx in the amount of $$$. I have no recollection of incurring this debt and wish for this debt to be validated, please provide evidence that I am legally obligated to pay this debt to you. If this debt cannot be validated I request kindly that it be removed from all credit reporting agencies and to not return.

By the way this account is one of them that is past the SOL.

My FICO Score from Equifax is 515 ..... not very good at all.

Credit Secrets Bible

My Current Credit State Of Affairs

2007-05-29T18:42:00.000-06:00

Like many others in this country of ours I have descended into credit hell. I went through a nasty divorce from October of 2003 until January of 2005 that left me pretty much in financial ruin and as a result my credit, that I had spent the last 15 years building to "A" status, was decimated. This blog is going to be documenting my attempt at repairing my credit rating, and hopefully anybody that reads this can gain some information to battle their own credit demons.

Up until 2 days ago I had no idea as to where my credit truly stood, I knew it was very bad, but did not know how bad. I pulled all three of my credit reports by going online to annualcreditreport.com, here you can get a free copy of each of your credit reports once a year. It was bad.

Equifax:

22 Accounts in good standing (This is mostly old credit and is deceiving because accounts paid or current with late payments are included here.)
3 Accounts past due
7 Accounts with a negative account history
91 Late payments (Some of the accounts in good standing fall into this)
8 Collections or Charge-offs

TransUnion:

22 Adverse Accounts
14 Satisfactory Accounts
47 Late payments
13 Collections or Charge-offs

Experian:

14 Derogatory Accounts
21 Satisfactory Accounts
28 Late payments
14 Collections or Charge-offs

I reviewed the personal information, you should really check this good. Experian had my birthdate wrong and they had a previous address listed for a place that I never lived. These cannot be corrected online, they can only be corrected via mail and they will want proof. DL or something like that. Equifax had a wrong address and two social security numbers that weren't mine. TransUnion had address wrong. This wrong address appeared on all 3 credit reports, I have no clue where this came from.

I then used the online dispute forms for all 3 credit agencies. I was told by someone that has done this before to not dispute more than 4 or 5 items at a time. I logged on to Experian and filled out their dispute form. I figured the way to start would be to eliminate problems I absolutely knew were wrong or had no knowledge of. I showed 2 late payments from Capital One, 11/03 and 02/04, I disputed saying I was never late paying. I hear Capital One is very hard to get them to budge, so we will see. There was a WF Finance account that showed 2 late payments for 03/03 and 04/03. I had no idea what this account was let alone the fact the it was late, it was a $500 revolving account. I noticed it was a joint account with my EX. No doubt one of her accounts she opened behind my back. Nevertheless it was in good standing besides the late payments and it was a closed account. There was an item from ProCollect for a $250 collection, come to find out this was an apartment complex where I lived for a short time when I moved from Florida to Texas. No idea what they are charging me $250 for, I bet this collection agency doesn't have very good records so it is a good target to dispute. I also noticed there was a Citibank account that was showing as paid in full and showed good payment history, but was listed as a charge-off. I know this was paid off in full in good standing in 4/2001. So I disputed this item as well. These were my inital disputes with Experian. This will take around 30 days from what they say to find out the "verdict". I have read a lot from people that say the online disputes don't work, it is worth a try because it is a way to get the ball rolling immediately. If it only gets one off, it was worth it. One piece of advice I was given is that if you are challenging late payments with the credit reporting agency, a lot of times they will just delete the whoel account from your credit report, if this account was in good standing besides the lates it could hurt you with the deletion. I made a note on my dispute to not delete the account.

Next I went to the Equifax dispute link. Come to find out in my region Equifax is managed by CSC Services, so I was re-directed to their site. I saw that the same WF Financial account was listed, but it only showed a $5 high limit and it showed the 2 late payments. I challenged the 2 lates. The Citibank card was also listed here as a charge-off, so I challenged this to get it to say "paid in full as agreed". Washington Mutual had listed 2 late payments, this was one of my old mortgages, I simply challenged the late payments as to never being late. The Capital One was listed as well with 2 lates, so I challenged these. Again, I made a note on the late disputes to not delete the account.

Finally, I pulled up the TransUnion dispute page and challenged the same ones I challenged previously.

One last thing I did to close out my battle for the day was to send a debt validation e-mail to a collection agency that is named NCO Financial. I have a collection account listed on my TransUnion report for $81, it is some sort of medical bill. I have no clue. I have heard that NCO generally deletes the account from the credit reports once they have been asked to validate the debt. I will get more into debt validation at a later date, because that is the number one weapon vs the collection agencies.

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