Steps To Cleaning Up Credit, Do I Have These Right?
1) request report from all three agencies and compare items.
2) do you dispute all negative claims before contacting agencies, just in case they dont reply in time and you can have them removed on technicality?
3)after disputing with the big 3, contact collection agency stating you will pay 25 to 50 cent on the dollar if they agree to remove it from record entirely. dont agree to pay otherwise. maybe agree to pay .75 after negotiations stall, but dont pay money unless they agree to remove it entirely. does it really work to play hardball with these people? sounds a little to easy to me...
i understand that this can get be a bit time consuming, but this all sounds to easy. i was a victim of my own irresponsibility and lack of $$$. I got out of the military and finished up with school last year. Now I'm making really good money and I want to take the quickest/most efficient route to resolving my credit problems. After I get the disputes out of the way I will follow the advice of getting a small signature loan against my savings account, taking the money and getting another loan against it. will it show up if you pay early/pay over the set payment amount for the 4 - 6 months that the loan is active? any other pointers would be appreciated. also, as I am working at an hourly rate and work around 15 - 20 hours over per week, I will wind up paying around 20K in taxes just on my overtime this year. would greatly appreciate any tax tips.
thanks in advance
MJ
Your plan sounds fine. The only sugestions I would make is that you really want to establish credit for a little longer than 6 months on those new accounts. You should always try to have at least 3 or 4 active trade lines on your report that have ben active for at least 12 months.
Make sure you don't borrow up to he maximum of your credit limit, whereever applicable.
You could also try secured credit cards, where you place a small deposit,and can borrow up against that.
You could also have a family member with good credit add you as a secondary card holder on a credit card that they have. As they pay their bill every month, it will show up on your credit report automatically. Your family member can protect themself by not giving the actual card, that way you can't use their credit .[ Edited by mortgageman on Date 09/24/2003 ]
Thanks for the tip on the credit card...
Anyone got any advice on tax prep's and writeoff's that I can utilize this year? I hear starting a "home business" has a few benefits to it...
MJ
Dont forget that credit card thing can go the other way too. If the main cardholder doesnt pay it shows on yours as well.
Benny
[addsig]
On negotiating pay offs...never increase your offer...always lower it! they already wrote it off...and part of your offer is complete clearing of all negative issues on all reportings....get it in writting before paying....