Student Credit Card Forum

[newmommy2206]

I am a single mother of a 2 years old who works full time and takes five classes. I want to buy a home so that I can securely invest in our futures. However due to poor reports on my credit report I am having the hardest time getting approved for a student loan let alone a home mortgage. I have a fraudulant bankruptcy supposedly on my report, which I never filed. And $8000 is hospital bills from a surgery last December, in 2006, that my insurance company has FINALLY pulled together to resolve. These items are still on my report though and my question is two simple one's actually.

*How do I get these items off of my credit report?
*Is there anyone out there who have had horrible times getting a private student loans and who were finally successful without a co-signer?

Sincerely,
Kayla Jo Littlefield

[Credit Card Guy]

Dear Kayla,

Congratulations on all that you are managing in your personal life. Its fantastic that you are able to take the classes along with your other responsibilities. Without overstepping the bounds of credit and finance advice (I hope) I would like to point out that taking the classes is investing in the future of your child and you and its OK to cut yourself a little slack. Purchasing a home is a giant responsibility and additional stress. I purchased my first home, a condominium a few years ago after getting all the pressure from everybody to "stop throwing away money on rent". Let me tell you, I wish I continued to throw that money away because my mortgage made it much harder for me to invest and pay off debt and with housing market being unstable, I'm not even sure if my investment is worth what I paid for it. If I personally had it to do over again I'd have continued renting and taken the extra money I had for a mortgage and paid off credit cards, student loans and started more investing.

Now onto your question. It sounds like your issues with getting approved for private student loans and a mortgage are one in the same - your FICO credit score. I also understand that the two biggest issues there are issues that should be resolved, i.e. they are not something you actually should be penalized for. The method for removing these is to either use a credit repair firm or take it on yourself. My advice to you since you seem like a person who is willing to roll up your sleeves is that you do it yourself. There is nothing a credit repair firm can do for you that you can't do for yourself. Here is what you need to do step by step:

1. Obtain the most recent copy of your credit report. This can be requested free once per year from http://www.annualcreditreport.com (this THE ONLY OFFICIAL site for this, others may claim to get you a free report but they are going to charge you eventually). Another option is to contact a credit reporting agency whenever you are denied credit, here are the addresses:

Equifax
P.O. Box 740241
Atlanta, Ga.
30374-0241
800 685-1111
http://www.equifax.com

Experian
P.O. Box 2002
Allen, Texas 75013
888 322 5583
http://www.experian.com

Transunion
P.O. Box 1000
Chester, Pa. 19022
800 888-4213
http://www.transunion.com

2. With your credit report in hand you should then "dispute" the bankruptcy and the medical charges, basically just report them as incorrect items. You can do this in writing or Experian and Equifax will let you do it from their website! The credit report should give you instructions and if not its on their websites. What happens when you dispute an item on your credit report is that the credit agency sends a letter to whoever it is that put the item on your credit report and they have 30 days to confirm it. Often they will not bother to follow up which means the item is automatically removed! Alternatively they will take another look at the issue and if they find they made a mistake they will report it as inaccurate and it will be removed. The final scenario is that they look into it and determine its accurate in which case the item stays on. I mention doing this first because it costs you nothing and of the 3 results possible, 2 are good! The worse case scenario is you end up where you are now. The best case scenario is the the people who put it on your report are too lazy or disorganized to respond in 30 days and the items are gone!

3. If the items are not removed you can then contact the company who put each item on your credit report. Your credit report will tell you who it was and their contact info. I would then call each one and ask them to remove the items. In the case of the bankruptcy if you didn't file it that should be easy. In the case of the medical bills, its hard to say who put it on your credit report. If the hospital sent it to collections who then put it on your credit report but it was the insurance company who messed up I would start with the insurance company and try to get them to give you a letter stating it was their mistake and maybe even have them make a call for you to the hospital or collection agency. The letter is imporant for two reasons. First you can use this to prove to the hospital that they never should have sent you to collections and I would scream and shout until they made their collections agency remove the item. I don't have high hopes for a collection agency helping you on their own so that's why I would approach them last. The other thing the letter will do is help you with a mortgage. Banks look at your FICO credit score for a mortgage but they look deeper as well and you will have the chance to show an underwriter the letter from your insurance company and possibly get them to overlook the medical bill stuff.

4. If these two items are really the main issues on your credit report, are not yours and you can't get them people who put them on there to remove them then I would consult a lawyer. Ask around to see if any of your friends have one they trust first. You can also consider the many credit repair lawyers, they may be able to help but they will charge you and the first thing they will do is exaclty what I just outlined for you. If you decide you want to go this route I would contact Lexington Law through our special link (it tells them you were referred by us): http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-2131508-9878621

Please let us know what happens. Also we can try to help with the private loans. Have you Joined Scholarship Points and signed up for you $10,000 scholarship? If not make sure you do that too: http://www.scholarshippoints.com

Good luck!

TCCG