Nov
15
2009
How Much Does Old Bad Credit Affect Your Credit Score?
Posted by: Alan in Credit Score, tags: Affect, Credit, Does, Much, Score, Your
I have 5 negative reportings on my credit report. None of them are after the year 2004. I am wondering since there over 4 years ancient, how much are they affecting my credit score? And, has anyone ever heard of credit card companies deleting accurate late pays if questioned?
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November 16th, 2009 at 12:06 am
1. Order your credit reports from the 3 bureaus
http://www.equifax.com
http://www.experian.com
http://www.transunion.com
If you’re ordering for the first time, get your score (for a fee) from Equifax as their scoring matters most.
2. Make copies of your report and place the originals in a binder. On the photocopied reports use a highlighter and check for any incorrect, outdate, fake, etc…info
3. Download a dispute letter(s) from the credit bureaus website and list anything that is incorrect. Mail them to their office(s). They have 30 days to answer.
4. If they will not remove something that is not yours or too ancient (> 7 years) as them for a debt validation. This may take an additional 30 days.
5. Once the ‘baddies’ come off, take care not to let any of your other accounts fall into that quandary.
6. If you haven’t already make sure your existing accounts are current and paid on time ALWAYS.
7. Get a secured credit card with http://www.capitalone.com or http://www.mastercard.com for like $500-1000 or more if you can and use it sparingly. Charge like $50 on the card each month and pay it in FULL and on TIME. Make sure you do this for a minimum of 6 months so that you estabish a positive repayment history.
8. Problem with just letting them ‘fall off’ is that they may never. You may get sued before that…that’s where you suddenly get a summons to appear in court and a judgment for collection against you.
For the 2 collection items…pay them but get a ‘pay for delete’ from the collectin agency in WRITING…they’ll delete it after you pay and it will help your credit score.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:30 am
Make sure the terrible stuff is at least closed. While its open with a balance its hurting your credit. After it is closed (charged off or not) then its just a negative that is there but not a major weight factor.
When you mail off your dispute letters make sure they are sent with a signature required. This will make sure you know when to start the 30 day mark. For the most part the older stuff will be deleted cause either the credit bureau will not want to research it OR the creditor can not validate it.
If you are paying off terrible dept work out a settlement where you pay a percentage of the balance BUT you want them to either remove their mark on your credit report all together or at least the terrible stuff.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:22 am
They aren’t going to delete late pays if questioned. I reckon it’s either 7 or 10 years that a negative reporting is on your credit history. The best thing you can do is request a credit report (you are entitled to a free credit report each year) and see what your score is really looking like. 5 payments made a few days late aren’t going to have major impact, but seriously delinquent payments or foreclosures/reposessions will definately hurt you. Go through the articles on this site for some fantastic information about your credit report, how to get it, etc. http://clarkhoward.com/query/results.htm… Clark Howard is on the radio in Atlanta (I reckon he’s syndicated to other markets) talking about finances. He’s got a lot of fantastic resources on his site like ways to save money and invest as well as information about credit. You can type in the search anything you want information about and find some help. You can also even call his team 5 days a week. All the info is on the site.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:13 am
As time goes on, negative accounts have less and less effect on your score. From 1-2 years they have a huge effect, but after 5 years they are having very small effect.
You can try sending a goodwill letter to the credit card companies asking them to remove ancient late pays, some of them will do that.
November 16th, 2009 at 8:23 am
still hurting your scores and as far as removal. that ain’t going to happen if it is accurate. The Honest Credit REPORTING ACt