Confused & A Headache :-(

[abaronhalt]

I'll try to be brief...

My boyfriend & I recently applied for a mortgage loan and turned down.. Our credit scores are in the low 600's. We do not nor have ever had nor do we intend to get any credit cards.
We have one open mortgage loan of a very low balance due and one personal loan (also a small balance) that we have paid on faithfully for over 2 years.

We have about 4 things each on the negative and I know all of mine are older than 7 yrs but the reports do not state this ...grrrr. My bf has 2 large collections that his children ran up and never paid (he didn't know about it). He has tried to dispute the one but didn't get any where. I will try again for him this coming week.

The questions are.....

1) Do I need to dispute my old records that are not showing old on my reports?

2) How can we get our scores up if we don't want to deal with a credit card?

3) Can I have the old refinanced/acct closed records removed and the old mortgage bank accounts removed that were pd off early....they are showing on the negative.

I am really confused and my head is swimming :-(

Thanks for any suggestions or help.....much appreciated.

[Lian]

1. Each item of derogatory information included in your CR has a maximum date after which is must be removed from your CR. FCRA 605(a).

It is the responsibility of the CRA to monitor those reported delinquencies and cease their inclusion in your CR. Their failure to do so is a violation of FCRA 605(a), and is not a matter that you would dispute as inaccurate credit reporting.

Gather proof of the date of the reported delinquency, and if a monthly delinquency that happened more than 7 years ago, or a collection or charge-off that occurred more than 7 years plus 180-days from the DOFD on the OC account, send a letter to the CRA asserting a violation of FCRA 605(a), and ask for their immediate deletion from your CR. That process is not an actual dispute of inaccurate credit reporting under FCRA 611(a) or 623(a)(8).

2. The reporting of your effective use of discretionary revolving credit is the primary risk analysis factor relied upon by FICO scoring in assessing your utilization of credit. Without revolving credit in your credit file, you will have a thin credit file, and will be unlikely to rise into the 700+ FICO scoring.

Bit the bullet, get a CC, and pay in full each month. Don't carry a balance, and you wont pay interest. If you cannot manage revolving credit, you are unlikely to rise to even an average credit score.

3.You can contact prior creditors, and ask for their good-will deletion of any derogs reported on those accounts. It is usually NOT to your benefit to ask for deletion of the entire accounts, for that will result in your loss if its age in the calculation of the average age of your accounts. You simply want the deletion of the old derogs, thus making the account positive.

[Hal Jordan]

Originally Posted by abaronhalt

The questions are.....

1) Do I need to dispute my old records that are not showing old on my reports?

2) How can we get our scores up if we don't want to deal with a credit card?

3) Can I have the old refinanced/acct closed records removed and the old mortgage bank accounts removed that were pd off early....they are showing on the negative.

I am really confused and my head is swimming :-(

Thanks for any suggestions or help.....much appreciated.

1: No, if they're not on your report they are not negatively impacting your score.

2: You can take out a unsecured or secured loan through a local credit union. You can even open an account, put the money from the loan in the account and ask for automatic payment withdrawal. Essentially you will have to pay the interest but it will show as an installment loan paid each month on your credit reports.

3: As Lian has already told you .. you can write a goodwill letter asking them to remove the late pays or whatever but to leave the account as it will help with your debt age. Also, if they remove the negative stuff like late pays etc the account will then switch to a positive account. NOW with that said you may be better off leaving them even with late pays if they won't do the goodwill letter because if they're a few years past, the lates probably aren't really affecting your score negatively anyway (even if it says negative) and having the entire tradeline deleted may lower your score.

I'm not sure why you're so adverse to having a credit card as long as you use it responsably.

I would recommending getting a wal-mart card (which you may qualify for even the low 630's) and just make one or two small purchases a month and pay it off regularly.

Debt to credit ratio makes up 30% of your score so you need current available revolving credit if you want to get your fico score up. It sucks.. the system isn't fair but boycotting it won't change it. It will just make you have a low score.

WRT to your boyfriend. I assume he co-signed some stuff for the kids and now that stuff is in collections. He should contact the collection agencies via certified mail and explain the co-signing situation and explain he is trying to get a loan but needs the neg tradelines removed. And that he will pay them if they'll PFD (Assuming he has the money to pay them off). If not he may want to try and get the kids to take responsability and help him get them paid off.

[abaronhalt]

Thank you for the replies.
We did finally get a bank to accept our loan. It's pending approval until appraisal.
The boyfriend did not ever co-sign a loan for this child to put several bills in his name, run them up until they shut them off and never paid them. He refuses to file a charge against them for using his SS number to get these utilities turned on. So I guess he is stuck there!

I am afraid to get a credit card. I've heard nothing good and everything bad and what happens if something happens that we cannot make a payment? We are on a very limited income so we must watch every penny.

I did find copies of some older CR's and it looks as if the collection people just keep bumping up the date! I'll have to look in to it some more.

I appreciate the answers I received and look forward to reading some more on this forum :-)