5. Pay off past dues and charge-offs within the last two years. Beyond two years, it will have no impact on your score if wiped out. In fact, the act of paying it off can actually take your score down temporarily.
6. Request that creditors and credit bureaus delete any outstanding debt that is incorrectly charged to you or has yet to be cleared.
This only partially seems to work. I've been arguing with Cingular for charges they have on me after I closed my account back in year 2000. It went to Collections. They refused to retract. I don't owe the money. I sent a letter to each of the 3 credit bureaus and have only been partially successfully at getting them to drop it off my credit history.
I would rather pay more interest on a house loan than donate money to Cingular via extortion fees (basically by blackmailing me via the credit history). I think the whole premise behind the credit history makes no sense - my ex's parents spent everything in cash their whole live and had sound financial spending (certainly better than those who open up a ton of credit cards, pay the monthly balance but are living outside their means in reality). But my ex's parents found it near-impossible to get a car loan because they had no real credit history.
And the fact that this isn't very public information is really doing a disservice toward those who are in the lower income brackets who are trying to build better lives but maybe can't assume a middle class and higher financing like to buy a house or a car but have their sole debt perhaps in financing - how fair is that to them? And when is this ever really about whether you live within your means and are a good financial spender? I don't believe their assumptions are valid.
When I worked at a financial company, I was also told that having anyone access your credit history is also a ding, albeit a small one. I was like well fuck you I moved once a year in California and that means landlords access my credit history so does that mean I'm dinged for moving and not how I spend my money? I could never get a clear answer on that. And it's ridiculously classist as well - just because you can manage the numbers better to outwit the credit history system doesn't mean that you're any better of a spender/financial planner than someone who doesn't know these things (even though you're rewarded with a higher FICO score)....I mean the "your" in general (not personal) sense. Mostly, I just have a lot of issues with this stupid credit history. I finally managed to get mine up to excellent credit...'course moving up in classes and earning money probably had a lot to do with it.
5. Pay off past dues and charge-offs within the last two years. Beyond two years, it will have no impact on your score if wiped out. In fact, the act of paying it off can actually take your score down temporarily.
6. Request that creditors and credit bureaus delete any outstanding debt that is incorrectly charged to you or has yet to be cleared.
This only partially seems to work. I've been arguing with Cingular for charges they have on me after I closed my account back in year 2000. It went to Collections. They refused to retract. I don't owe the money. I sent a letter to each of the 3 credit bureaus and have only been partially successfully at getting them to drop it off my credit history.
I would rather pay more interest on a house loan than donate money to Cingular via extortion fees (basically by blackmailing me via the credit history). I think the whole premise behind the credit history makes no sense - my ex's parents spent everything in cash their whole live and had sound financial spending (certainly better than those who open up a ton of credit cards, pay the monthly balance but are living outside their means in reality). But my ex's parents found it near-impossible to get a car loan because they had no real credit history.
And the fact that this isn't very public information is really doing a disservice toward those who are in the lower income brackets who are trying to build better lives but maybe can't assume a middle class and higher financing like to buy a house or a car but have their sole debt perhaps in financing - how fair is that to them? And when is this ever really about whether you live within your means and are a good financial spender? I don't believe their assumptions are valid.
When I worked at a financial company, I was also told that having anyone access your credit history is also a ding, albeit a small one. I was like well fuck you I moved once a year in California and that means landlords access my credit history so does that mean I'm dinged for moving and not how I spend my money? I could never get a clear answer on that. And it's ridiculously classist as well - just because you can manage the numbers better to outwit the credit history system doesn't mean that you're any better of a spender/financial planner than someone who doesn't know these things (even though you're rewarded with a higher FICO score)....I mean the "your" in general (not personal) sense. Mostly, I just have a lot of issues with this stupid credit history. I finally managed to get mine up to excellent credit...'course moving up in classes and earning money probably had a lot to do with it.
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