Q:
Mike,

I’m an educated, honest, hard working woman who has had a difficult two years. I went through two (brief) periods of unemployment and my credit has suffered. I was never educated on money matters and I didn’t take the responsibility to educate myself until it was too late. I was late on payments – car and student loans – and I feel very overwhelmed with the daunting process of repairing and restoring my credit. I need options and help. I feel like a one of those morbidly obese people on Maury Povitch who can’t figure how they got to 860lbs. and feel too far gone to do anything about it now. Except I HAVE to do something about this because I’m disgusted with how out of control everything seems.

A:
Jasmine,
I am sure I can get you in the right direction. Could you give me some idea what is on your credit report, and what your current situation is ?

Q:
Thank you so much for responding – and so fast!

Okay, here are the gruesome details. Brace yourself, this is going to get ugly.

I have 3 negative accounts, my credit card, my car payment, and my student loan which is now in forebearance but was more than 120 days late.

I have one account in collections but I paid that account off. I don’t know why it’s still on my credit. I was told they would send a letter to the reporting agency asking them to remove the item from my credit.

Is there any hope? Please help.

A:
Hi Jasmine,
Typically when you have a collection or a slow pay, it will be on your credit report for 7 years from collection date. If a collection company told you that they would remove a collection from the credit report, make sure you get it in wirting. If your 3 negative accounts are in collection, then I would negotiate paying them off for pennies on the dollar.If you dont currrently have any good credit reporting on your credit report, I would recommend gettintg some new credit, this is part of the credit score building process. You typically need a couple credit cards and one other type of loan in place. Here is a good article about collections and the credit rebuilding process.
http://www.creditscorequick.com/2008/04/fast-free-credit-report-repair.html

You can apply for credit cards and loans at our secue site. www.creditscorequick.com/reward_cards

About the Author: Mike Clover is the owner of http://www.creditscorequick.com/. CreditScoreQuick.com is the one of the most unique on-line resources for free credit score report, fico score, free credit check, identity theft protection, secured credit cards, student credit cards , credit cards, mortgage loans, auto loans, insurance, debt consolidation ,and a BlOG with a wealth of personal credit information. The information within this website is written by professionals that know about credit, and what determines ones credit worthiness