Fabulous Financials

Operation Credit Repair RE-LAUNCHED!!

23 October 2006, 6:21 UhrCreditSingle Ma

I hate to go there again, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. While I have no major purchases planned in the near future, maintaining an excellent credit rating is very high on my personal finance priority list. So imagine this:

Here I am just chillaxin’ on the couch this weekend and sippin’ a lil drinkie drink when I receive an email notification from my credit monitoring service. It tells me there may be ’suspicious activity’ or a ‘potential derogatory’ item added to my credit report. I open the email, follow the links, and sho’ nuff…BAM!! A COLLECTION ACCOUNT!!

Now y’all know Single Ma thinks bad credit is NOT fabulous, so I’m all over this one POST HASTE. It’s been a while and I’m a little rusty, but feel free to follow along as I refine my skills of “Do It Yourself” (DIY) credit repair. Without further ado:

Single Ma’s Operation Credit Repair has officially RE-LAUNCHED!

Part I: Meet the Culprit

Part II: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Part III: Know Your Rights

Part IV: The 1-2 Punch

Part V: Call BS When I See It

~*~*~*~*~*~
Work to achieve, not to acquire.
And as always, BE FABULOUS!

If you enjoy reading this site, don't miss a thing! Subscribe to Fabulous Financials via email or RSS feed so you can receive notifications when I publish new content.

13 comments:

prlinkbiz, 23 October 2006, 6:44

What credit monitoring service do you use? I signed up for True Credit but cancelled after realizing their scores were FAKO (thanks to the Credit Boards).
I hired a law firm to help get my credit to mid 620 (i just needed some baddies off that weren’t mine and build history) and they will help me improve to 720 and keep my credit clean as I get more agreessive investing in RE. However, I may also go though Credit Repair to Credit Millionaire by Donna Fox- it’s been sitting here waiting for me! LOL
GeckoGirl, 23 October 2006, 7:12

I feel you. I pulled my credit reports just because a few months ago and saw a collection account from a city I haven’t lived in in over three years. After numerous phone calls and faxing of documentation, I finally got it taken care of but it pays to be vigilant.
Serenity23, 23 October 2006, 7:23

I subscribe to True Credit Monitoring, what’s this about the scores being fake?
Lys, 23 October 2006, 12:11

OH NO!!! Keep us posted. You can do it!! And I’ll be takin’ notes - cuz credit repair is a *****. Thank god for Lexington Law - they got some stuff off my reports, but I need to take the reigns and go forth on my own *sigh*
Single Ma, 23 October 2006, 16:09

@ prlinkbiz - I use a monitoring service associated with my bank. I didn’t post a hyperlink because I didn’t want anyone to think I was advertising or recommending them. I use it to “monitor” my reports, not for the scores, so I don’t bother with the FAKOs anyway.

I don’t care for the law firms or profit generating credit repair agencies. There isn’t anything LEGAL a third party can do for you that you can’t do yourself. If your reports are clean, they can not “help” you improve to 720. If they have convinced you that they can, I’d run away right now…FAST. If you believe they can, I wonder how much you’re paying them. Shoot, I’ll do it for half the cost AND teach you how to do it yourself for future reference (lol). At any rate, good luck to you!

@ gecko - Past experience has taught me to keep all communication in writing (no phone calls). It took me about an hour of research to get a quick and dirty refresher, so now I’m ready to roll!

@ serenity - Lemme see, how can I explain this? Hmm…

Your FICO score is a proprietary algorithm patented by the Fair Isaac Corporation that ranges from 350-850, depending on your credit profile. It is the lending industry standard. Consumers have access to their “classical FICO score,” but most lenders use some variance of this score (auto enhanced, mortgage enhanced, credit card enhanced, etc.) to make lending decisions, depending on the purpose of the loan.

Since the use of FICO scoring is so popular, other companies have followed suit and tried to copy FICO’s algorithm to generate what they also call your credit score. For example, each of the credit bureaus use their own formula and range (PLUS Score by Experian, Beacon by Equifax, and I forget TransUnion), the monitoring services, online score estimators, and many others.

Therefore, if a credit score is not directly from FICO, many credit gurus call it a FAKO (or FACO) because it’s generic, hence, a fake FICO. Sometimes you might get lucky and it may be close to FICO (+/-100), but it’s a crap shoot. So when preparing for a major purchase, it is recommend that you get your real FICO scores directly from the originating source to level the playing field. This will give you a more accurate view of how lenders will determine your credit worthiness, and in some cases, give you leverage during negotiations because you also know what they’re working with to base their decision.

A small addition to the credit scoring frenzy: there is now a new score called VantageScore (whole new algorithm, whole new scoring range), which was intended to create consistency in the scoring model across the 3 major credit bureaus. This new score may or may not take the place of FICO in the lending industry, but we shall see.

@ lys - Yea, credit repair is a bytch! I’ve done it before, so this time around should be a cake walk. If you have the time, there’s nothing Lexington Law can do you for that you can’t do for yourself…for FREE. Remove the profit incentive and nobody cares about your credit score or the accuracy of your credit report as much as YOU.
Aly Cat 121, 23 October 2006, 16:43

ohh dayum thanks for the info about the credit scoring. Now I know what the hell FICO stands for. It’s also good to know to get the goods from direct from the source cuz I thought all of them were “real” sources. Dayum ain’t nothing sacred. Folks would sell their mama’s if they could get money for her. LOL
Tazzee, 23 October 2006, 19:28

you gotta love those monitoring services. For a while I thought they were a waste of money but about a year ago I realized the value of them. Well worth the few dollars I pay for it.
Tired of being broke, 23 October 2006, 19:35

Single Ma am like you I monitor my reports and not my score. So far so good, no problems (knock on wood).
I do not need my score until time for the next big purchase, a home.
Serenity23, 24 October 2006, 7:14

Single Ma- Thanks for the explanation, but that leads me to another question. I went through the process of getting pre-approved for a mortgage loan and the lenders took my three scores and took the mid score to determine my interest rate. So wouldn’t that mean that those scores from all 3 bureaus do matter?
Single Ma, 24 October 2006, 7:59

We have credit SCORES and credit REPORTS.

Your credit SCORES are generated from the information IN your credit REPORTS.

Mortgage lenders use a “mortgage enhanced FICO score” that is generated by evaluating information IN your credit REPORTS provided by all 3 bureaus.

So yes, all 3 scores do matter, but they are not scores FROM the bureaus.

They are scores using the industry standard, mortgage enhanced, FICO formula.

Not sure if I just confused you more, but I hope this helps.
MsJayy, 24 October 2006, 22:47

I relaunched my overall financial plan this past week - upping credit score, revamping 401(k) & other savings/investment vehicles, etc. Pulling copy of my credit report tomorrow to comb over it this weekend.
Larry Linkler, 28 October 2006, 12:27

Single Ma - I’m impressed with your FICO knowledge! It’s encouraging to the rest of us in the same boat.

LL
DonnaFox, 2 December 2006, 11:53

Prlinkbiz said:
“However, I may also go though Credit Repair to Credit Millionaire by Donna Fox- it’s been sitting here waiting for me! LOL”

Thanks for the props. Let me know how it’s working for you.