Finance Questions

Archive for March, 2005

Question: Which is your favourite Yahoo Answers category?

For reference:

Answer: Entertainment & Music (Everything)

Pets (everything)

Family & Relationships (friends)

Pregnacy & Parenting (Baby Names and Grade-Schooler)

Finance bill won't change Wall St. business model

Question: Possible zombie debt collection?(Don't answer unless you know how credit scores work)?

I have been dillegently rebuilding credit after failed relationships/ a period of heavy drug use...(insert sob story here)...but I thought I had it until I got acollections notice today from '03. I have read that actually paying it off might hurt my credit score that I have seen rising. The difference between the settlement amount and the actual amount is quite negligible with my finances as they are now. I could easilly pay it. I have contacted them (bank itself & collections agency). The bank is willing to mark my credit report paid in full, the agency will mark paid as settled, niether is willing to delete the account upon repayment. Should I repay this debt or will it negatively impact my credit score. Trying to do the right thing is not as important to me as improving my credit score.

Answer: You have to pay the debt or it will never go away and make your credit worse. But there is something you can do to eventually get it erased faster than 7 years from now...

Step 1:
Pay off your debt in one lump sum.

Step 2:
About 2 months later go to the Experian website and request a fraud alert. This won't hurt you at all and is just a precaution if you think someone may be trying to use your identity. It lasts 3 months, and all it does is makes it so that creditors have to call you and verify your identity if you are trying to get a new credit card.
Once you have placed your fraud alert you will be granted a free credit report to work with.

Step 3:
Analyze everything on your credit report and note anything that looks bad.

Step 4:
Dispute everything that you don't like, even though you are responsible for it. There is a dispute section on the experian website.

Step 5:
The burden of proof is now on the company. They must prove that you are responsible for the debt, late payment, etc. within 1 month, or the debt automatically gets erased. So keep checking your credit every month or two to see if it has gone away. And keep on disputing!

Step 6: The companies will get sick of proving your debts and most won't even bother in the first place(what advantage is it to them to waste their time with this?).

Step 7:
You should have great credit like me!
I fixed a couple stupid little things this way and have a 720 credit score.

Good Luck!

8. Debt Consolidation - savingandinvesting.com