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On credit and its improvement
Organichu
poopspeesRegistered User regular
poopspeesRegistered User regular
In my "youth" (pretty much the first year or so after my eighteenth birthday) I was intensely irresponsible. I defaulted on a new cell phone contract, maxed out three credit cards (thankfully right after getting them while they still had relatively small credit limits), etc. I've heard that getting frequent credit checks is detrimental to your numerical score, and so I wouldn't like to continually recheck it and recheck it as I pay down my debt.
So, bottom line: once I've paid off my extant debt and all the debt in collections, and once I confirm from each of the collections agencies that they've submitted proof of my payment to the credit bureau... how long until my credit score is 'updated'? I've heard checking your report is bad for your score so I don't just want a new report each week.
Part two of the question: how long with reasonable behavior (a couple of utility bills, responsible usage of a credit card, no more unpaid bills, etc.) until my score is reasonably similar to the average person capable of getting a car note, a mortgage, passing a credit check for an apartment, getting a higher credit card limit, etc.? I know it'll be a really long time if ever before I can hope to get great enough credit to receive fantastically low rates on any of these things, but I'd like to know how long, or an approximation of how long, after my settling with all collections agencies until I am considered a 'normal' guy again.
Thanks all!
So, bottom line: once I've paid off my extant debt and all the debt in collections, and once I confirm from each of the collections agencies that they've submitted proof of my payment to the credit bureau... how long until my credit score is 'updated'? I've heard checking your report is bad for your score so I don't just want a new report each week.
Part two of the question: how long with reasonable behavior (a couple of utility bills, responsible usage of a credit card, no more unpaid bills, etc.) until my score is reasonably similar to the average person capable of getting a car note, a mortgage, passing a credit check for an apartment, getting a higher credit card limit, etc.? I know it'll be a really long time if ever before I can hope to get great enough credit to receive fantastically low rates on any of these things, but I'd like to know how long, or an approximation of how long, after my settling with all collections agencies until I am considered a 'normal' guy again.
Thanks all!
Organichu on
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On my credit card's website there's a thing that shows me my credit score every month from Trans Union and also for the previous 6 months or so. There's also a little thing that shows how doing different behaivor changes a typical credit score. Things like paying more than the minimum balance help. Things like paying your complete balance off also help. I'm sure there's these hypothetical simulators online somewhere. Things like opening and closing accounts frequently negatively impact your score.
If you're being responsible and paying off your debts at a decent rate your score will rise. How much is all a matter of your personal circumstances.
That all being said, your credit score kind of by definition can't really change more often than once a month or so, and can't change all that much per month. So just keep doing what you're doing and it'll all work out.
Also, you can get one free credit report per year from each of the three credit agencies. So if you want get one every four months to see how you're doing. This is a pretty good idea anyway as it lets you keep tabs on your credit.
Edit: To Szechuanosaurus: because if a company is doing a credit check for you, it is likely from a loan application, credit card application, etc that you are trying to open. Trying to open/apply for a bunch of these at once negatively impacts your score because you are trying to get a bunch of credit. I think it's worse if you're declined and repeatedly try to get credit from various sources. It basically means you're more of a risk to a credit company.
However, if you don't want to go there for some reason, then all I can say is that there is no quick fix. Just paying off the debts won't do anything to make your score rise, really. The problem is that you'll still have the collection on your account and that weighs heavily against you. For the purposes of scores, a paid collection is only a little better than an unpaid collection. The same problem applies for having late payments and things like that. So basically, just paying everything off and hoping for the best isn't going to do a whole lot. I'm not advocating not paying your debts, by the way, just saying that you now that you're in a bind you've got to be smart about it. You can negotiate with the collection agencies to remove their name from your report, which is what would help your score. There are other things that you can do to help to get your score up, but frankly it is a lot more than could be explained here. Plus, I'm far from an expert, I'm just a guy in a similiar situation that's been doing a lot of research the last few weeks.
Also, you can check your credit report as often as you want. A lot of people are signed up with various credit monitoring services that allow you to pull your report every 24 hours if you want. These are soft pulls and since they come from you, they don't count against you. You can also get your credit report for free once a year, which is always a good idea just to make sure there aren't any inaccuracies.
You should also be aware that the scores that are generated on the credit monitoring sites are just estimates and can be wildly inaccurate. The only way to check your actual FICO score is from the Fair Isaacs Company at myfico.com. Some people say that their estimated scores are within a couple points of their actual scores, but for some people it can be around 100 points off.
My credit is at this point is back to 'good to excellent', but I still check all three credit reports twice a year. I'd suggest you do that at a minimum to make sure they aren't screwing you by keeping old accounts open - it's much easier to fix an error right away rather than wait until next year.
Just to clarify, bankruptcies are not legally allowed to stay on a credit report for longer than 10 years while things like collections, charge offs, and lates are not allowed to stay on longer than 7. However, there is no law that says that they must stay on there that entire length of time, that is entirely up to the credit reporting agencies and whomever is furnishing them the data, which is why you can negotiate to get some things removed if the company is so inclined.
You can also increase your credit score by getting a second credit card and not putting anything on it. But you can weight out the risks vs. benefits about that yourself.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
One of my credit cards is now on its last payment (dated for July 5th). I spoke with a representative and he told me that 21 days after the last payment is posted, I should write a letter requesting a "settled in full" acknowledgment.
Unfortunately, I think the only real option available to me is to get a secured credit card.
You could do that. If you bank at a credit union you could ask for their card. Or get a store credit card at some store you frequent.
Let's say for example that my score is 650... is there a method of quantifying that? Like, "this score is generally 'ok' for credit checks on apartments, and might get you X rate on a carloan without a cosigner", etc. ?
The best you can probably do is just get a range like you mention, which will let you know whether you're ok, or if you're going to have problems/get bad rates.
It probably wouldn't tell you what your interest rates are, that depends on the bank.
There's more than just credit score that goes into loan approval (and apartment approval), such as income, length of residence, length of employment.
Ex: My credit is average but my income is good, I can get approved for things that someone with a good credit rating but lower income might not be able to.
This is especially true with things such as apartments, where they pretty much demand that you be able to prove X income based on the rent of the apartment.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other