Getting really discouraged..

[Hal Jordan]

I'm starting to feel pretty discouraged with the results I'm getting from this process.

All 5 of my goodwill letters requesting a 30 day late payment be removed have been denied. And my PFD letter to an old OC for an old charge off has also been denied. All of my disputes with the CRA's have been denied and show as "verified".

I haven't had much luck at all. The CA's I've been dealing with are either ignoring me all together or sending back a "this is your debt" letter without the requested proof of signature on a contract.

When I started I had 12 potential negative items with experian, 10 with Equafax and 12 with Transunion. 6 ca's, one charge off and the rest are 30-60 day late pays. I have only gotten one deleted (and that was a CA I paid before I found this process).. but one of the CA's after receiving my DV letter for one debt listed a new item on my CR for $48 for a 4 year old medical bill and another new CA just showed up on my CR for a collection of $31 from another medical bill dating from the same period of service.

They're destryoing my credit for $79! And the kicker is I don't even remember ever getting a bill for either of those services. I disputed both of them online and they of course both came back verified.

I sent out DV letters last week to both of them and haven't heard back yet. But I'm fairly certain I'll get the "this IS your debt" letter back.

Things appear to actually be getting worse for me since starting to try and clean up my report
And all of the hours I've spent on this have been for nothing...

[Game Plan]

Hal,

My advice would be to hire a professional and reputable credit repair service like Lexington Law or Sky Blue. If you are doing things incorrectly you may be actually causing more damage to your credit file. I just signed with Sky Blue over the weekend and have been impressed by their prompt and professional customer service. Time will tell how effective they are at credit repair but I have a huge sense of relief since signing up with them. Hang in there!

[creditrepairnow]

Hi Hal,

I agree with Game Plan. You may need to go down the route of professional credit repair. This not only includes credit repair services like Lexington Law, but also accountants, and bankers. Maybe sit and have a talk with the personal accounts manager at your local bank. They can be very helpful.

All the best and good luck.

[Hal Jordan]

I appreciate the comment of hire someone but I really don't feel like throwing my money at someone to do something I can do for myself. I have double checked and I am doing the process correctly as outlined through this site. Including the "1 - 2 punch" I am just disappointed because I have not been getting favorable results.

Two of the CA's I have sent letters to have actually had a couple of violations by verifying with the CRA's before verifying with me even though I have my crrm green slips as proof they received my request before they verified.

The goodwill letters I've sent out I received their standard form letters of "we must report accurately" yada yada yada.

I have double and even tripple checked this process with this site and with creditinfocenter.com

It's just discouraging to hear no.. or to have CA's blattently violate the law in your face and the CRA's be completely apathetic about it.

Lex Law and Sky blue just write dispute letters over and over and they never give you the same person twice to deal with (read their reviews here). And honestly, I don't even know how they operate legally when according the the FTC it's against the law for a credit repair company to collect a fee BEFORE they repair your credit.

I just have such a hard time paying some company to write and mail letters when I can do that myself.

I would like to hire a real attorney to do this kind of stuff, write letters and file suits against CA's for me.. but I just don't have the cash.

I'm not giving up.. I'm just feeling discouraged.

[chane]

I respect your decision not to hire a credit repair company, but I think you may have the wrong idea about them. They do much more than "just write dispute letters over and over" as you mentioned. They have years of experience of dealing with CRAs and CAs that are quite frankly the worst companies in the world to deal with. They know better than anyone what works and what doesn't.

Unfortunately, even after the hundreds of thousands of people they have helped, the people that are upset with them are the ones that will post online about their bad experience. Those are also the comments that consumers will mostly pay attention to. Nevermind the other 99.9% of the customers that were satisfied. They aren't posting online, they are out looking for new houses because they just got approved.

The way they get around charging up front, is that the fee is a "set up" fee. They are not charging you for credit repair up front, they are charging to set up and analyze your account or whatever.

Either way, the key is to stay persistent. Everyone's situation is unique and handling many clients files as a former credit repair company employee, I can tell you that most people get much better results that you have.

That doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong. It just means that some people's credit situation is much easier to handle than others. I've seen people 40 negatives on each credit report. After 2 disputes, every single item was gone. Credit scores go from 500 to 700+.

I've also spent 6 months or more on other clients using the exact same techniques and had people go from 500 to 520. That's just how it is. But, honestly those cases are rare. Most go up at least 50-100 points and many of them go up over 200 points.

[Hal Jordan]

Well, after a lot of work I finally had some good news.

The biggest and the worst of all the collection agencie's negative tradelines on my reports has been deleted from Equifax and Transunion. Experian managed to somehow verify it when the other two couldn't (of which I have re-disputed again) but regardless it's the one that's gone.

This was the nastiest of all of them as they actually put a "KD" every single month for the last three years on my tradelines. It was also the largest amount of around $533.

I have weighed my options and I'm going to try a new technique with the two smallest CA's reporting on my CR. One is for $31 and the other is for $48. I am sending them PFD letters offering to pay those full amounts (while not agreeing they are my debt) if they remove them from all of my CR's.

I sure hope this works for me.. I will say that it's a good feeling getting the worst of the worst gone from 2 of my 3 reports!!!

[Hal Jordan]

More good news... I had a charge off from HSBC Bank deleted from Experian and all I did was submit an online dispute against it. For some reason Transunion won't let me do online disputes anymore and equifax today told me that my account information does not match my log on stuff even though nothing has changed.. WTF?

So I'm writing them letters today to see if I can get them to delete the charge off from the other two CRA's also. I also just disputed the collection agency that bought the balance from HSBC when they charged it off. Since it's been deleted they shouldn't be able to verify it and Experian should delete it too.. (I hope anyway).

Man, things sure turned around in a hurry.. My worst CA has been deleted, A charge off has been deleted.. hopefully the CA associated with charge off will be deleted. And hopefully the other two CA's will do a pay for delete!!!

Feeling much better about everything.

[Game Plan]

Hal,

Great news! I hope you have good luck with the remainder on your efforts.

[Hal Jordan]

Apparently the online form I submitted with Equifax was received after all. Even though it told me my information did not match (I figured that out. i was using an old conf # to get into their dispute center and it wanted a recent one).. Anyway, Equifax has now deleted the Charge off from HSBC also!!

Transunion will only conduct business with me via mail now. I called them and got a very rude woman from india who made it quite clear that she could not help with any online problems and gave me an address to write to for assistance. I went ahead and made my disputes with her over the telephone. I will let you guys know how this works out for me.

Other than some 30 day late pays from 1 and 2 years ago I now have just 4 collection agencies on my record and those total less than $600 all together. And one of them is the CA that bought my debt from HSBC Bank. I'm duspitng that one right now and I am trying PFD with a two of the others. I'll let you know how that goes... Wish me luck!

And thanks Again for all the information posted on this site. Chane, it's a big help and it really is appreciated even if some people complain about the ads or about their being "better" sites out there.

The majority of the information that I have gained about how credit works and about debt repair has come from this site.

So thank you!!!!! And thank you to the rest of everyone who has helped me here!

Even if I run into a brick wall from here forward I've gotten a charge off and two CA's deleted from my account and that never would have happened had I not gotten the kind of information from here that I did!!