I've taken the first steps . . .

[RenewingMe]

This site contains and wealth of information, and I appreciate everyone’s willingness to help each other get their credit back on track. My CRA scores as of today are EQ516/EX565/TU537. My goal is to raise all three scores to 720+ (hopefully, within one year’s time). My only open accounts are a mortgage (late pays), car loan (three years never late) and I am an authorized user on a Firestone account (14 years never late/$1800 limit/$230 balance). I also have a couple of closed accounts with good payment histories: HSBC/RS ($7K limit/$0 balance/never late) and Amex ($1154 high balance/$0 balance/never late/closed by me).

Now, on the downside, I have several negative accounts, including a voluntary surrender and six collection accounts. The SOL on the VS should expire in May/June of 2011, so I may just leave it as is. The SOL on a couple of the collection accounts expire late this year. The remaining are items which I intend to dispute as either not mine (truthfully), out-of-date (purchased by CA using new delinquency date or that I will seek to PFD.

I obtained copies of all three reports from annualcreditreport.com on January 23. Last night, I also enrolled with Identity Guard so I could obtain my credit scores and reports from all three CRAs, as well as be able to monitor my progress in improving my scores while also being alerted to any changes with either CRA. Upon joining the forum last night, I immediately “opted out” from prescreened offers, as recommended. My next course of action will be to update my personal information with each CRA. I hope to get those letters prepared this weekend for mailing on either Saturday or Monday. While waiting for my personal information to update, I intend to get things organized so I can work on getting the negative information removed. I’m sure I will have plenty of questions about my “plan of attack” prior to sending out my letters.

I have to admit that it really feels good to be proactively working on getting my credit repaired. I’m usually pretty good about declining all offers for credit; however, last month while at Nordstrom paying for a purchase with my debit card, I was offered a Nordstom ModCard, which is a card tied to your bank account (same as a debit card). My application was denied. I hadn’t seen my credit reports since I purchased my car in 2007, and assumed that all was well. My score was around 620 at that time. Boy was I mistaken. Anyhow, after reading for hours on this forum, I am confident that I can get my financial affairs back on track. Thanks for listening!

[chane]

Congratulations on starting your journey! Stay away from department store cards.