rebuilding credit in these times

[Charlie]

Also, you have to use your cards occasionally. My fico s 793, and I still had BoA decide to kill a credit card that I hadn't used in a while.

Yea, banks are freaking out about people holding onto "empty" cards for emergencies right now. I popped a small charge onto all of my empty ones just to make them look active, I know a few people that had their accounts killed.

-Charlie

[Vtec?lol]

I've got a co-signer on a loan to pay my debts. I'm looking at $90 every 2 weeks till july.

So funny how you can bring your credit to shit in a matter of days but it literally takes years to build.

Student loans, if you have them... Good. Now start paying at least $35 on them monthly. That's really nothing when you think about it but the sooner you start the better it shows on your CR.

[b*saint]

Most people don't buy a house with coinstar reciepts and singles.

-Charlie

Exactly.

And since I used to have an AMEX I use the pay it off every month method.

I always thought if you had a lot of open lines of credit and didnt use them, it was bad because the ability you had to put yourself in debt even tho you arent yet.

[nando]

I use my AMEX for all my regular purchases, pay it off at the end of the month, and 2% of what I spent goes into a 529 account for my son. pretty sweet deal. :)

[VacMan]

For everyone reading this thread, if you haven't already done it go to www.annualcreditreport.com and pull all 3 of your bureaus for free. This is the government mandated free site, not the BS "freecreditreport.com" where they actually try charging you for scores, etc. By law you're allowed to pull your bureaus for free once per year.

If you're unsure of why your credit is jacked up, you need to pull the bureaus. When I bought my last house I found someone had used my information to open a bunch of cell phone accounts and defaulted on them, dropped my average score from 738 to ~620. I had no idea because the billing, collections and everything else went to fictitious addresses.

It took me 3 months to get all the BS expunged from my credit report and I had to jump through 20 hoops to do it. The bureaus won't remove them if the phone company still says they're legit, so I ended up having to go through each phone company's fraud department.

Bottom line: check your bureaus.

Tim

[Bimmerista]

If you can afford to do so, buy a $5k car and finance it through a credit union. Your payments on a 4 year note should be about $140/mo at 15%.

Thats what I told a couple of my friends to do in college who wanted to build credit and it worked perfect for them. Credit cards can only do so much, but if a paid-off car shows up on your report, thats even better rapport.

[FL318is]

Okay boys, words of wisdom!

Make sure you have disability benefits at work. After my cancer, my funds, hence credit went to shit. I did have amazing credit. Not now.

A medical emergency will rake you.

[blocke]

For everyone reading this thread, if you haven't already done it go to www.annualcreditreport.com and pull all 3 of your bureaus for free. This is the government mandated free site, not the BS "freecreditreport.com" where they actually try charging you for scores, etc. By law you're allowed to pull your bureaus for free once per year.

If you're unsure of why your credit is jacked up, you need to pull the bureaus. When I bought my last house I found someone had used my information to open a bunch of cell phone accounts and defaulted on them, dropped my average score from 738 to ~620. I had no idea because the billing, collections and everything else went to fictitious addresses.

It took me 3 months to get all the BS expunged from my credit report and I had to jump through 20 hoops to do it. The bureaus won't remove them if the phone company still says they're legit, so I ended up having to go through each phone company's fraud department.

Bottom line: check your bureaus.

Tim

+1

Knowing whats on your reports and cleanigng them of bad marks is step 1. You work hard enough at it, and half the negative shit on your credit reports can come off like it was never there. And do yourself a favor, and STOP applying for loans. Your adding inquires to your reports at a cost of 1-3 points per inq. And your making yourself look desperate for money in the eyes of creditors.

In your situation, Credit Unions are your friend. Walk in with $500 to $1000 cash, and set up a secured loan. You deposit cash in an account, they match that amount, and make auto payments from your deposit to pay off the "loan". You cant fuck it up, and it only ends up costing you a few bucks in interest. In the end, youve got paid off loan, no extra inquiry on your credit, and you forced yourself to save all that money for 6-12 months. Then you can take that money, roll it into another secured loan, or open a secured CC.
Google "credit boards", theres a big forum devoted to credit.

Ive been through it, PM me if you need pointers.

[rwh11385]

VacMan, thanks for the link. I have been meaning to check my reports since buying my house a year ago. Good to see all is still well.

Yea, banks are freaking out about people holding onto "empty" cards for emergencies right now. I popped a small charge onto all of my empty ones just to make them look active, I know a few people that had their accounts killed.

-Charlie

Yeah, I just split a tank of gas between two cards I rarely use to keep them active.

If you can afford to do so, buy a $5k car and finance it through a credit union.

Thats what I told a couple of my friends to do in college who wanted to build credit and it worked perfect for them. Credit cards can only do so much, but if a paid-off car shows up on your report, thats even better rapport.

Yeah, that's exactly the advice someone who spoke on the topic gave at a thing I was at a few years back.

I didn't have a credit history 4 years ago, besides being an authorized user on mom's CC. (Great way to borrow your parents' good credit...) I added two high limit personal CC from BMW (through the club) and Chase (when opening a new checking account). Then got a car through a credit union. Then got a house at a great mortgage rate.

After that, it's just about keeping credit where it is. Once every few months, I ask to bump up my credit card limits. I try to have my credit cards only utilize 15% of available credit. I look forward to paying off my student loans and car loan, then investing money and paying down my house for another 29 years...

Most people don't buy a house with coinstar reciepts and singles.

-Charlie

Haha. You can afford a lot of tinfoil hats with cash tho...

[Jean]

Okay boys, words of wisdom!

Make sure you have disability benefits at work. After my cancer, my funds, hence credit went to shit. I did have amazing credit. Not now.

A medical emergency will rake you.

Similar situation here, had great credit until I got laid off...not enough savings to cover the cc bills.

So, save and/or pay off your CC balance as soon as you can

[b*saint]

My credit score actually went up today again.

[e30prideTN]

If I could get a little help...

I'm checking equifax right now and it has an old Rooms to Go account I applied for in 06. I never used it and never knew it was on my credit until now. It's a revolving account that was closed in 2008 by credit grantor.

What does that mean? Can I do anything about that?

[b*saint]

Just got a new CC today actually. If I use it like my amex I shouldnt pay any interest.

[scabzzzz]

If you can afford to do so, buy a $5k car and finance it through a credit union. Your payments on a 4 year note should be about $140/mo at 15%.

Thats what I told a couple of my friends to do in college who wanted to build credit and it worked perfect for them. Credit cards can only do so much, but if a paid-off car shows up on your report, thats even better rapport.

This is what I did. The only thing I've ever had in life was cars until recently.
OP, it takes 7 years to drop off totally. Kinda like bankruptcy. All my credit cards had their limits hacked down to 200 dollars above what I owed.. Anyone have that happen to them?

[scabzzzz]

If I could get a little help...

I'm checking equifax right now and it has an old Rooms to Go account I applied for in 06. I never used it and never knew it was on my credit until now. It's a revolving account that was closed in 2008 by credit grantor.

What does that mean? Can I do anything about that?

You can dispute it. Revolving credit accounts reflect negative for some reason. I've been fighting my credit score for about 2 years now. Just keep trying. Im closing on a house next week at 5% fixed rate interest with a 710 credit score thanks to me being a persistant fucker. My debt to income ratio is fucked too..!