subject: Charge Offs [print this page] Credit repair isn"t just about removing negative items. It"s also about building positive credit by adjusting your spending habits and developing a good record of responsible debt repayment.
In this article, I will share my true credit repair story with you. I"ll tell you how to accomplish both sides of the credit repair task ahead of you: delete negative items and build good credit.
My credit troubles began with a few maxed out credit cards. The interest got out of control, and eventually it got to the point where the card balance was so high I couldn"t even make the minimum payments each month. For a long time I"d been treading water financially, but now I was actually sinking.
Soon, the credit card companies got tired of dealing with me. They sold my accounts to collection agencies, and representatives from those agencies took over. They were extremely aggressive in their attempts to get me to pay off my debts.
A representative called my home literally every day, and I got tons of angry letters in the mail. It was frustrating, disheartening, and demoralizing. I hated being reminded of my financial mistakes every day. All I wanted to do was forget about the situation and move on.
Of course, that was impossible. Debt collectors are really invested in making you pay up. They work on commission, so they don"t get paid until you pay. Naturally, this means that they"re not about to just let an account go without trying every tactic at their disposal to secure repayment.
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Their tactics normally begin with harassing phone calls, hoping that you will get so tired of talking to them every day that you will pay up just to make the harassment end. Then, they may move on to making repayment "deals" in which you are offered a low monthly payment. It may sound good, but read the fine print and you will discover that the interest and fees are exorbitant and the monthly payments go on for years.
If your debt collector is particularly unscrupulous, they may also make threats against you. For example, they may threaten to garnish your wages if you don"t pay up. It"s important to realize that threats of this nature are often groundless and ILLEGAL. Unless the debt collector has a real intention of filing the necessary court case and a real chance of winning that case, they can"t make threats of legal action against you..
For a while I tried my hardest to ignore the entire messy situation. I kept my phone turned off most of the time, and I stopped reading my mail. I was actually pretty successful, at least until I started thinking about buying a house.
I decided to get a copy of my credit report from TransUnion, so that I could see what kind of financing I might be able to get for a new house. When I saw my score, my heart dropped. I knew I"d had some credit problems, but I"d never dreamed my score could be so low! No way was I getting financing with a score like that.
