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I'm new to the forum, and I have bad debt, bad credit, and owe the IRS. I'm working with an attorney to fix my FED tax issues. Things are going well. Now I'm ready to tackle years of bad debt. And I would love to get some advice from someone who's faced similar challenges and has overcome them. A step-by-step method of viewing, addressing, and erasing bad debt would be ideal. I've already cut up my credit cards as of 1-2 years ago, so I haven't built more debt over the last couple years; I just haven't tackled the pre-existing bad debt either. Aside from printing a credit report and identifying the debt, where do I proceed?
Thanks in advance for all your insight.
Sincerely,
Will
credit repair
Hi WillH,
Welcome to this community :)
To repair your credit and improve your credit score you need to:
1. First get hold of a copy of your credit report.
2. Check for all the negatives there on your credit report.
3. Check the last payments made on all of these accounts, and determine if the Statute of Limitations (SOL) on these debts has expired.
4. If the SOL has expired, dispute that item with the credit bureaus.
5. However, if the SOL has not expired, negotiate with those creditors and collection agencies to whom you owe, and negotiate a payment agreement.
6. Then request the creditor or collection agency to agree to a "Pay for delete" agreement. With PFD the negatives get removed. (Not all creditors and collection agencies agree to PFD.)
7. Also check if there are any wrong listings on your credit report. If there are any items which you can't recognize, send debt validation letter to the collection agency reporting the item (debt validation letter sent only to colection agency and not creditor) through certified mail, requesting a return receipt.
8. Take a secured card to improve your credit score. Use the card to make purchases, and then make ontime payments on the card.
All these together will help you improve your credit score, and clean up your credit report. Also remember to get all kinds of agreements in writing, and check your credit report once in three months for the updates.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Aaron