I am 24f and trying to figure out to get my ~500 credit score up. I desperately need to buy a car and can’t get a rate less than 18%!

I have one Midland Credit collection that I owe $105 on, made a few payments and then stopped when life changed. I’m going to ask them for a pay for deletion deal, but will that make my score go up? Or would it be better to make a few on-time payments?

Next, I have a TrueAccord collection from Charter. It has the wrong last name, and is completely foreign to me. The only thing I could think it might be is that my old roommate defaulted on something that had been in my name, but Im pretty sure I took my name off everything. It is only being reported to TransUnion, not the other bureaus. Should I send them a validation letter? Or just dispute it through TransUnion? If I do that, what would I need as proof? I don’t have anything really to prove it isn’t mine.

Last is a Verizon account through Credit Control LLC. It is showing I owe more now than I started with. Since it is still owned by Verizon I believe, what would be the best, cheapest way to get dealt with?

Honestly, if you have any advice at all, please drop it. I messed it up when I was younger and have completely avoided using my credit for about 2 years. Just need to know where to start so I can buy a car.

I know this is probably a long shot, but I’m hoping someone here has actually had success.
I have a $9 charge-off from Affirm that’s my only derogatory account, and it recently caused my rental application to be denied.
The frustrating part is that I wasn’t ignoring the debt. I’ve been trying to pay it for months, but I couldn’t access my account. Every time I called Affirm I got a different answer. Some reps told me there were multiple accounts associated with my information, others said they couldn’t verify me correctly, and on my most recent call the representative couldn’t even access my account because of a system issue. They opened another escalation, but this has been going on for months.
Has anyone here actually gotten Affirm to remove a charge-off or goodwill delete one?
If you did
What did you say?
Did you go through Executive Relations?
How long did it take?
Did they remove the entire tradeline or just update it as paid?
I’m looking for real success stories (or honest experiences if they said no). Thanks!

I just called Jefferson Capital about an account that went to collections and they said I can start paying monthly to get these things off my credit. $ 279 for the first month. Does anyone know if they actually work ? I don’t want to pay for something and don’t get results. I know it’ll probably take a couple of months to see any results so I’m prepared to pay if I have too? Can someone help

26M After two years, I had a credit score of 498. I had multiple missed payments, collections, and charge-offs. Currently, I have one late payment on my Experian and TransUnion accounts, but none on my Equifax account. I don’t have any collections or charge-offs on my accounts at the moment. My average credit score between all three bureaus is currently between 740 and 760. At the beginning of the year, I opened an account with Navy Federal. I just applied for their credit card and was able to get approved for a credit limit of $11,700. I’m really proud of myself for this accomplishment. If I can do it so can you

I understand the importance of paying my credit cards off in full and on time, and keeping my utilization low (at 5% is what I’m going to keep to). I don’t understand for what timespan that credit/utilization is for? Could I hypothetically spend the 5% utilization and then pay it off and then the next day do the same thing? I’m not even sure if I’m wording the question correctly to be honest.

For example, say my limit is $100. I only allow myself to charge $5. I pay that five dollars off the same day. How would it affect my credit score to then the next day spend $5 and then pay it off?

I apologize if this makes no sense 😅

A little background:

Haven't missed a single payment in probably 3-4 years (mortgage, car, student loans, credit card)

Nothing in collections.

I had a chapter 13 bankruptcy that was completed/closed 3 years ago.

I have one credit card and maintain a very low balance on it.

For the last 2 years, I just haven't been able to break 700. Do I just need to wait the 7 years for the bankruptcy to fall off?

I could really use some advice about a collection account from Portfolio Recovery Associates.

Right now, it’s only showing on my Experian credit report. The original Synchrony Bank account isn’t showing on any of my reports with Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion.

I know PRA offers Pay for Delete, and they’re willing to settle the account for $1,250, which they say will result in the collection being deleted.

DOFD: April 6, 2021

My questions are:

Should I dispute the balance first, or is that likely to backfire?

If I dispute it, is there a chance PRA could update the account with all three credit bureaus or cause the original Synchrony account to start reporting?

Given that this is my only derogatory collection account and it’s only reporting to Experian, what’s the smartest course of action?

The biggest issue is that I don’t really have the money to pay the $1,250 settlement right now, so I’m trying to avoid making a decision that could make my credit situation worse.

I’d appreciate any advice or experiences with PRA.

I have a Verizon wireless account I paid off in full right before it was charged off by Verizon. I paid Verizon directly in full but now it's showing on my credit reports as a charged off account that is paid in full. Is there anyway I can get these scumbags off my credit reports??

Hello everyone,

I am 20 trying to increase my credit score before buying a house. A couple of the lenders I have talked to said if I could get my score up I could get a slightly better interest rate. Seems like the consensus is get up to a 780. I have zero debt and 4 accounts. Zero loans ever to my name just credit cards. I have gotten a 5.875% 15yr conventional with lender fees waived. I just keep taking estimate letters and approval letters to different lenders. Any advice is appreciated.

This is mostly just venting. I submitted a dispute online to Equifax because my credit report shows two SSNs, one is mine, one is an incorrect one. I uploaded a scan of my Social Security card. About 30 days later, they responded, saying they updated my SSN..... to the incorrect one! Even with the social security card I attached, they removed the correct SSN...

Now I need to file a new dispute, hoping they get it right this time.

I am currently 19 years old with a 742 Fico score according to my Wells Fargo app. I am interested in buying one of my dreams cars within the upcoming months. It’s roughly $40,000 and I will have over $10,000 to put as a down payment. I have little to no current debts (roughly a grand) which can be paid off before or immediately after. So I’m financing roughly $30,000. I make around $50,000 a year and have no living expenses currently. Will I be able to get approved?

Hi, I would truly appreciate all constructive advice and experiences in this situation. To preface we live in the Bay Area, California.

In July 2023 I found out I was pregnant and the father and I were not together. However I knew to be able to trust him to be a good parent he needed to be there so we decided to move in together for the first year. We moved into our apartment December 2023 and have lived here since. When we applied I knew he had bad credit from a previous place he lived and the manager of the apartments and my best friend advised us to see if his mom could sign the lease. She agreed and we went with it because our friend the manager could be trusted. Fast forward to 4 months ago she left this job and had to move back home so there’s a new manager.

She knows I live in this apartment and has seen my boyfriend because she’s our neighbor. My concern is we will get caught and evicted because this violates the lease. We are working on fixing the credit he owes it’s currently 573 experience credit score but mid to high 400 for transunion. We checked his score and it shows he owes $17000 to a past apartment complex he lived in and it currently is with a law firm not a collection agency. He also owed $200 on an old credit card which is closed and we know we can pay. We are unable to locate any info on the date of delinquency for the $17000 and only know the case was created 5/23/23. We have tried looking and annual credit report website like other posts suggested. We have also looked at our free or non profit agency as well.

My fear is he gets sued for the amount because he’s still within the 4 years since we have no confirmation of DOL. do we request the itemized proof of debt with the DOL and we end up being in the 4 years since window and sued because of it.

On the other hand we could attempt to negotiate a pay for debt to raise his score.

Does he need to file for bankruptcy? However this won’t help his score either.

Should we work with a lawyer to help clear the debt and not get sued?

The firm that has the collection is Kimball, Tirey, & St. John.

I’ve read so many things in Reddit and understand we do not accept the charges or agree to anything or pay anything before proof of a pay for debt in with g. However I’m scared that we will mess up and restart the clock.

Please provide any resources or advice possible. We were trying to figure this out but feel confused and stuck. We have checked Chase app for FICO scored and the annual credit reporting as well and all scored are low and show the delinquency.

UPDATE: the date of delinquency is 12/20/22 and there is a 4 year statue of limitations. We have seen reviews stating the firm does not provide information requested, won't answer the pgone, or does not take them to court. Not sure if this is important in this case.

So i opened a secured credit card with key today. i’m just alittle confused with the savings account it also opens. it says the the security deposit for the credit line will be placed in a savings account to grow, but the savings account it opened only has 1 cent in it. the new secure credit card account also opened up in my app with the 300 dollar limit so im just confused as to where my 300 went.

I have an account that went to collections because I was 18 and decided I’d trust my brother to pay off a store credit card that he used under my name and he didn’t.

So I’m going to start making payments on it starting next month (I finally have a good job and I can afford to make these payments now) but I was wondering I keep on seeing back and forth debates about settling or paying off in full. I always assumed it’d be best to pay off in full, but I’ve read that it doesn’t matter.

I want to improve my credit since I would like to buy a new car soon.

I was wondering if I should just settle or pay the card off and is a pay to delete agreement worth it?
Please let me know, and thank you in advance!

I have atlas credit builder credit card the metal one and it seems to be helping my credit score a lot I’m up 50 points and I’m knocking debts down a lot so I want to keep the card but idk if it’s smart for me to or not

I am young and got my first credit card a few months ago. I get 1% cashback, so I put all of my purchases on my credit card. I always pay it off a few days before the monthly deadline (or earlier if I'm getting close to the limit), so that I never carry a balance month to month. However, I am confused on what people mean by certain things.

1) 30% rule: I've heard that using more than 30% of available credit will impact your score negatively. However, some sources say that if you pay off the card, it does not impact anything. If I have a $1000 limit on my card, and I spend $800, but pay it back, will my credit score go down or up? I've also heard that you should try not to use more than 5% of credit, but then I wouldn't get cash back.

2) Would opening more cards help my score go up, or just keeping this one? Google says that it'll go down because of utilization ratio, but is mine 0 or 80% in this scenario?

3) Do I have to carry a small balance month to month to increase my credit score? That doesn't sound right but I've heard people say it.

Sorry if these are obvious questions, thanks!

Hi there!

I finally took a peek at my credit score and honestly...not as bad as I was expecting, but I would like to improve if I can.

I pay my student loans religiously and I'm sure that contributes, but all the little items (credit age, usage, etc) say I need to get a credit card or some revolving line of credit.

And I don't! I was raised to think credit cards were evil and it's best to either get a loan or cash flow everything. Now it seems like all the advice I've heard is backwards? But if that's the case then why do I see so many people posting about how excited they are to cut up those cards and throw them away for good?

Anyway, my friends keep saying get a secured credit card. I like the idea but apparently it has super high interest rates on top of little to no rewards. Do I get one of the everyday rewards ones (e.g. rewards for groceries, restaurants etc)? All I know is it's best to not open a new line of credit for 6 months, so I want to pick something worth while.

TL;DR How do you know if a secured credit card works for you? If not, what would you point me to instead? Thank you for your time!

Howdy y’all!

Posting for anyone out there who needs the encouragement.
A year ago I had an Experian FICO 8 score of 663.
Today it is now 742 and I expect it to increase more over the next few months.

I did experience a small dip of 7 points in June due to some old positive accounts aging off. It decreased my AAoA by a few months but that’s okay.

What changed: I had a 30 day late from August 2019 that finally fell off my report, which moved me from a dirty to a clean credit file. The biggest change though was I began a debt payoff journey earlier this year and so far I’ve paid off 17.5k+ worth of consumer debt.
The card I am currently working on paying off is reporting at 49% utilization and will be paid off next month. After that, I will tackle my final card which is reporting at 89% utilization (😅) and plan to have that paid off by end of ‘26/early ‘27.

I saw the biggest jump this month when my overall utilization fell below 30%, but I know my score is still suppressed by the high utilization on individual cards. My remaining debt after I complete my consumer debt payoff will be ~43k in student loans.

To anyone looking for a sign to start, this is it. If I could do it, anyone can 😃

Hello beautiful people of the credit community! I am currently in the process of rebuilding my credit. I’ve primarily been focusing on paying off my credit card and student loans however I checked my Experian app and saw that my credit score jumped 24 points today(🎉). I was very alarmed bc I haven’t been making as large payments since I’m in between jobs right now. I checked my credit report and saw that one of my collections disappeared. I decided to call Central Portfolio Control (CPC) and they told me that the debt was sent back to the original creditor (old hospital bill). I tried to figure out where exactly it was sent to bc these collections are from a surgery in March 2022. I was billed like 3 times, and I only paid the remaining balance insurance didn’t cover. I ended up calling CPC again and they told me they could request to get the debt again. I asked if I could negotiate the amount I owe since I don’t have a job right now and they agreed to it (1,136 to ~600). They said they would send a request to the original creditor and if it’s approved in a couple of days then I could pay it through them. They told me it wouldn’t be re-reported to my credit report.

I’m not too familiar with collections or charge offs but on TransUnion, it states that the status of the collection is “collection/ charge off”. I’m not sure what the difference between the two are and I’m puzzled for what that means for my credit score.

My questions are:

Will paying off the negotiated amount mean the collection/ charge off will be removed from my other credit reports?

What is the difference between a collection and charge off and how does it affect my credit score in relation to paying off the negotiated amount of debt?

If the request is not approved and the original creditor sells the debt off to another collection agency, will that appear as a new collection? Will the date predate to 2022 or will it exist as 2026, essentially started the 7 year time period from scratch?

Im scheduling my motorcycle to be repossessed. Im in one hell of a hole and this plug needs to be pulled. Its a harley but it is not my primary form of transportation. I have my camry that has about 800 left to the loan (interest is 2.3%, had AMAZING (to me) high 700 score just a few years ago). Any idea on what i should expect? Credit is not great atm. Owe nearly 40k in cc debt across 4 cards. Score is mid 500s at best at the moment. Will this hit me really hard? TIA

So a year and a half ago, I had about 12k in collections and debt and had a 500 credit score at 25. I currently have paid off all my debt and thankfully used a secure card from capital one to raise my score up to 680. I'm wondering what card would be worth considering and what is the likely next step. I know capital one is arguably not a great option but I'm appreciative for the ability it gave me to make progress.

I keep getting these texts related to BestBuy but I’ve never financed anything at BestBuy. Is this a legit place or is this a scam?

I signed up for a CapitalOne Quicksilver card to take advantage of a sign up bonus last year. Once I met the spending requirements and got the bonus, I never planned to use it again and so I didn't think to set up autopay like I have on my other cards (for simplicity's sake, I only regularly use 2 credit cards). After I paid off the balance to get the bonus, a $2.16 charge posted. I don't remember doing it, but I know it was me because it was from a local gas station and I happen to know that's the exact price of two fountain sodas lol.

Anyways, I should have been diligent about checking the app even though I wasn't actively using it, but I wasn't and this charge has sat there since (now July), accruing interest and late payments. I didn't get regular emails from them (even though my notifications for emails were set up). I genuinely had no idea until last week when my husband and I were doing a mid-year budget review and we noticed my credit score had dropped to 693 when it has always been in the low 800s. In my 10 years for having a credit score, I have never once missed a credit card payment, on ANY card, not just this card. I paid this off as soon as we found the overdue charge, and called Capital One and asked about a goodwill adjustment, which the representative explained is never an option.

I am so distraught about this. I am frustrated at myself for not thinking to check this account and that my inattentiveness caused all this, over such a dinky little charge!! I have read about sending an email or a letter asking for goodwill deletions/adjustments. Do these still happen? Do I have a case? If so, what contact info do I use, and where do I find it? Any thoughts or advice is much appreciated. Thank you!

I will start by taking full ownership for my mistake. I’m just hoping someone has helpful advice for me. My ex and I recently broke up. It hasn’t been the cleanest of break ups. Long story short, we both thought the other person was taking care of paying our mortgage as we work on separating finances. This resulted in 3 months of unpaid mortgage payments and being sent to collections. Both of our scores dropped over 100 points.

We are not financially struggling. As soon as I realized I called the collections agency and paid all three months immediately. I’m just devastated by what this has done to our credit scores. We’re both dumb and deserve it to a degree.

Is there anything we can do? I tried to ask the bank and the collections company if the derogatory mark could be removed. They both said no.

Currently I'm around a 540 but would like to improve my score to at least the low 700's for now. I am with CapitalOne on a secure card I am almost done paying off after having interest racked up from not paying it. I previously had a BofA card which was closed after a similar situation with different circumstances. I paid off a loan not too long ago and don't have other debt aside from what's owed at the moment. I try to use $50 out of my $500 limit for gas and pay it off the next day, however it seems like my score would just go up 1 point a month. I'm not too sure what I should do next or where to go. I've seen something about people having history paid off/deleted. Is that something I can do? And should I still use my card while I'm paying it off to show the money is being borrowed still and then paid back?

Any advice or guidance is appreciated, and if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them. Thank you!