It took me 2 years to finally get my measly $20 CLI from OrchardBank. Some people do get higher CLIs and at a shorter time. HSBC is wishy-washy when it comes to CLIs.

Hello there! I have a question regarding an Orchards MC CL $300, applied 06/2007 (still at $300). This is sorta my first cc and, therefore, I haven't used it much (new to credit). Do you need to use a card periodically in order for a company to increase the CL? Or is it just Orchard/HSBC being stingy with CLI?

I believe collections fall off your report within 7 years, no?

They are supposed to. If it has not already fallen off, dispute it with one of the credit bureaus (no need to do all three, when one updates all three update).

I believe collections fall off your report within 7 years, no?

Hello everyone. I have a question regarding my collection account from macys. i have an account that was in collection since 03/2001 that is still on my credit report. Should it be removed from my credit report after 7 years and if so how do I get it removed? Thanks alot for the help

Thank you JAY1 as well for the collection agency advice that I just saw.

Hey everyone, I want to first say thank you to SMCC, ESPEE, MEYA, COLONATIVE, and HJM331. You all have been very nice and insightful. Everyone has already helped me more than anyone of you could imagine. I stayed up long nights just staring at my credit report and thinking that it will never get better. I was scared to speak to anyone on here because I know that I made alot of mistakes and I was afraid I would be ridiculed and disparaged as a person. I wish I would have had the nerve to log on mths ago because I got into some very crazy credit practices. Again, thank you all for making this man feel better about himself and that he is not alone.

Before I got on to this site I was very lost. I would come to the site and just view the reviews and wish I could have great credit and get at least one approval from a reputable credit card company. Let me be honest at the time even the bad credit card companyies would not give me a chance.

But it was all my fault. I was irresponsible and to be honest I would be very skeptical about giving me a second chance without measures being established. i am ready to move on from my many, many, many mistakes and improve my credit.

As far as the questions everyone asked: I make around $30K a year. I have set a budget for myself but that is for current expenses and does not include any past expenses that have been charged off. i pay my creidt cards off every mth. I also pay a little credit on my car ( installment loan). I recieved a letter in writing from the dealership that they would report to all three major bureaus mthly. Much of my bad credit consists of quite a few charged off credit cards, several collection accounts, a repo that is set to fall of in October 2012 it started being reported on Oct 2005, and a paid default student loan.

My positve credit consists of : 1 Tribute Credit card CRDT limit of 300.00. I have had it since November 2008; credit card from Household Bank of 300.00 since January 2009; a installment car loan since january 2009. Five student loans that are currently in deferment until 2010 when I graduate.

I also made a big mistake before November of last year. I started looking hard for a credit card and ended up with quite a few credit card applications and getting denied. I do not know how many inquiries I have now. I did also apply for a Cap1, bestbuy, and let me just say alot of them. I was suffering from insanity ( searching for a new outcome but getting the same result). I thought that several credit card apps within the same mth would not hurt me. I was wrong! But I did learn alot from it all.

I will calm down and not apply anywhere else for at least the next two years. I have to give the inquiries time to fall off and even then only apply when I need something and not just to improve my credit.

I will also stop reading the stories and tips from other sites on the net. I will start coming here religiously; so everyone get use to me and I need your advice. Anyone that has any please I am open. I thank you all for pointing out that I should be open to hear from people with bad to even great credit. I am willing to listen and learn. I have no need to be defensive everyone is just trying to help me. I admit that I do not know all that I have to do and how to exactly do it. I do know that I have to now be patient because time is the catalyst to improving credit.

My goal in the future and not near future because it will take a long time is getting a apartment. Also seeing imporvements in my credit report and scores as well. for as far as I can remember, I have not had a score higher than 570. Thank you all again for taking time out to read and respond and anyone else who will give me advice in the future.

Thanks Meya for the help!

Cool. Called Bofa and had them transfer 1500 from my checking account to my secured card. Thank alot.

No problemo!

Hello all this in regards to collection agencies, some of whom are very willing to work with you some are not. I have paid some of my past debt and wanted to list who is easy and who is not.

NCO FINANCIAL
They would not do a pay to delete, but will take a settlement.

MIDLAND CREDIT
They are the worst keep re aging old debt they do offer settelment offers but do not do pay to delete

SPARTAN FINANCIAL
I had several medical collections with them. Two of them were already paid only on unpaid when I called to pay the one with a balance the offered to remove all three from my report

LHR
Old Suncom bill paid them in full 5 days later I received a letter on letter head that the item would be deleted in 30 days.

Hope this helps if anyone else has experience with other collection agencies please post and let us know.

This is to Billy and EJ. Everyone here is awesome! And we all try and help each other as best we can. Meya seems like she has been through a lot when it comes to rebuilding credit and my guess is you could learn a lot from her!

My advice...from my standpoint. Don't dive in headstrong right now. With the economy being the way that it is. Banks seem to be doing odd things right now. Stick with the credit you have and try and rebuild it over the next coming year or so! Work on that. And get yourself ahead of where you are now! And before you know it you will be telling us all about your new Capital One card, or your Hooters card!!! From what i have read those seem to be great for re builders! Treat them right and they will do the same for you! Trust me, one of my oldest cards is my Capital One card, and it grew with me!!!!

But as far as going hog wild on applying for new credit??? I would hold off! Heck my credit scores are all above 740 and I was denied credit just this month from BofA! Their excuses don't make much sense to me, but hey, thats life!

Another thing to keep in mind is this. My dad and I recently helped my younger brother rebuild his credit after a REALLY nasty divorce. And i can tell you that collection agencies are nasty evil horrible businesses!!! Google the name Bud Hibbs and the information provided on his website will help you out IMMENSELY when dealing with these agencies. As Meya posted in one of her replies you may just be better off not paying on those accounts and wait for them to be sold to another collection agency, then you can forward that info to the credit buearous and have them remove the old one as duplicate account information. And when you do get a collection agency that is willing to work with you and isnt totally rude to you on the phone...WORK WITH THEM!!!!!! There are collection agencies out there that are not bad. And they will help you! But again, for your own safety, get everything in writing! Heck one agency accepted a %60 settlement on an account from my brother, at $50 a month!!!! So they are not all bad! Just be careful, and again check out Bud Hibbs website for more information regarding that!

And Lastly...Remember...not everyone is the same...you are going to run into people on this site that have bad credit, average credit, and excellent credit. And you can learn a lot from everyone! So if you see someone like myself, or Rockin35 who has a lot of credit cards and excellent credit...dont get discouraged...it takes a lot of hard work discipline and time to build that...and that is what you should ultimately be working towards!!!!

We all get down sometimes...but we all got your backs!!!!

You are right cireone, I just went to the website and here is the info]How Secured Card works[/B]

• Helps you establish a credit history that will benefit you now and in the future.
• You deposit anywhere from $300 up to $10,000 into a Bank of America security deposit account. Your credit line will directly reflect the amount of your deposit.
• Then make purchases with your card up to the amount you have in your security deposit account.
• Pay at least the minimum payment before the due date each month. Paying off your credit card balance in full each month instead of carrying a balance may help. Your security deposit does not cover minimum payments.
• Based on your credit and payment history with your secured card, you may qualify for an unsecured card at a later date.

Cool. Called Bofa and had them transfer 1500 from my checking account to my secured card. Thank alot.

Hello everyone. I am new to this site. Please bear with me. I have alot of questions. I am frustrated. I need help knowing what to do. I have googled in several times online about improving credit. I see the same information. But, what are you suppose to do when the items are not erraneous on my credit and I have several collections and even a repossession that is 3 years old. I have just gotten 2 credit cards

What Meya said. But also, keep in mind, those collection accounts (if outstanding) can be sold and resold to different creditors adding to your negative trade lines. Best thing to do is to pay those collections off, and give it time. It takes years to build credit but only months to ruin it. You are on the right track if you have a few credit cards and a new auto loan.
I would try to contact those collection companies that have your balances and see if they will either settle for less then the full balance or see if they will agree to delete the trade line if you pay in full. Just be sure to get it in writing before you send payment. Also, if you do settle for over $500 you will get a 1099C tax form for your 2009 taxes, any discharged debt is considered income.

Good luck.

Hello everyone. I am new to this site. Please bear with me. I have alot of questions. I am frustrated. I need help knowing what to do. I have googled in several times online about improving credit. I see the same information. But, what are you suppose to do when the items are not erraneous on my credit and I have several collections and even a repossession that is 3 years old. I have just gotten 2 credit cards

Nice suggestions smcc! I guess I will throw my two cents in while I got time
1. But, what are you suppose to do when the items are not erraneous on my credit and I have several collections and even a repossession that is 3 years old? First off, the only thing you can do is move forward especially if you are not capable or paying back the debt you accrued. I see you have a repo that is 3 yrs old, you are going to deal with that issue for 7 years on your report regardless to if you are paying them or not. Any past debt that you have, it is important to look at the date they first reported any charge off on your credit report because that is the date you will be counting from. Please provide that info when you get a chance.

2. I have just gotten 2 credit cards]That's fine, but remember, you just put yourself back into the same category you are facing now, so be much careful this time. I do agree with smcc response to this, but let me tell you about my situation because I went through the same thing you did on this part. Keep those two credit cards and do not try to apply for anymore no time soon. You are about to go through the long-haul with rebuilding credit, and during that time you are going to need to build some type of history with credit. Those three are good enough to start with, 2 credit cards and an installment loan. If there are more, please let us know, and we can go from there. YOU DO NOT NEED MORE THAN 3 CARDS TO BUILD CREDIT.

3. I want a apartment. I want other types of credit from reputable lenders. What do I do? You will be able to get all of that but lets first focus on what you are dealing with now. Knock the "desperate measures" out of your head for the moment, because it will only depress you worse than what you are now feeling. Rebuilding credit is not a quick fix, it has taken me 5 years to get where I am at and I still have no luck with tier one (reputable) cards.

4. How long does it take for my credit to improve even a little. Can anyone tell me their personal credit improvement stories? Like I just mention in the last sentence, it has taken me 5 long hard years to get myself down to one charge off, my credit report had to be delivered to my door in a manila envelope because it could not fit through my mailbox folded. I had so many pages of charge off until I just slumped down in my chair, waited a couple of days, and went full throttle with disputes, and finding out who some of those creditors were. I had some things on my account that did not belong to me, some of the accounts were duplicates, some were outdated and did not fall off, and that is what you have to really watch out for. I marked (color coded) all the ones that were about to fall off, the ones that I had won through disputing, and watch them drop. To keep it real, I did not pay one a darn penny, I just watched them roll off my credit report. I knew I was not going to be able to pay all of that debt down, and through goggling is how I found out that if I start to pay down, they can keep negative information on my credit report longer.....NOT! Its enough I knew I was guilty, I did not blame anyone, and I took full responsibility for what I did by sucking it up.

I have joined this site and learned a whole lot from people here, this is what keeps me positive about my credit. I am glad you found us, and I must say that your best advice is to STOP reading stories all over the web and deal with your issue in one place. Its ok to browse around, that is how we bring in new info, but everyone is not going to rebuild their credit the same. Some has gotten off through fraud, lying, deception, piggybacking...etc., but when you sit down and find dedication among members on a particular site, you tend to feel friendship among those who are in the same predicament as you are, and that is where you establish financial dedication and responsibility. The long-term-credit establishment will shorten before you know it because we try to give you more short-term establishments to accomplish while you wait, and that is to get rid of the baddies one by one.

This is just my opinion, like everyone is different, but you can best believe that you will be getting some darn good info from us. Let me leave you with some links to read, and make sure that you keep an eye out on our author Mary Tomkin's, she provides some good resources on how to rebuild, maintain, and establish credit. Hope this helps]http ://www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/17/1/10-Steps-To-Improving-Your-Credit-Score/Page1.html[/URL]

2. Rebuilding bad credit [URL]http: //www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/8/1/Rebuilding-Bad-Credit/Page1.html[/URL]

3. Choosing the right credit card [URL]http ://www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/2/1/Choosing-the-Right-Credit-Card/Page1.html[/URL]

4. Beware of credit repair scams (just in case you were thinking about this...lol) [URL]http: //www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/20/1/Beware-of-Credit-Repair-Scams/Page1.html[/URL]

5. Setting a budget that works (this is an addition to smcc recommendation) [URL]http ://www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/23/1/Setting-A-Budget-That-Works/Page1.html[/URL]

6. Using credit wisely [URL]http: //www.financeglobe.com/Finance/Articles/articles/16/1/Using-Credit-Cards-Wisely/Page1.html[/URL]

I hope this helps you down the road, until then, stay in contact with us on regular basis through posting so we can be there for you every step of the way.


Jay1 just gave me a good idea, here is another link to look at, which is consolidating debt. He has been going through this process for some time and making good progress on repayment. Look for him to post in this link real soon. https://www.financeglobe.com/SocialNet/forum/showthread.php?t=584&highlight=debt

Hello everyone. I had a question regarding my bofa secured visa. I opened this account on 10/08 with a 500 dollar deposit. I heard that you could deposit more money into the secured account to increase your limit. I went online but did not see an option where i could deposit more money. Thanks for the help.

You are right cireone, I just went to the website and here is the info]How Secured Card works[/B]

• Helps you establish a credit history that will benefit you now and in the future.
• You deposit anywhere from $300 up to $10,000 into a Bank of America security deposit account. Your credit line will directly reflect the amount of your deposit.
• Then make purchases with your card up to the amount you have in your security deposit account.
• Pay at least the minimum payment before the due date each month. Paying off your credit card balance in full each month instead of carrying a balance may help. Your security deposit does not cover minimum payments.
• Based on your credit and payment history with your secured card, you may qualify for an unsecured card at a later date.