I have recently graduated college and am trying to fix my credit so
that I can buy a house and build some equity instead of paying rent.
Here is my situation. I was unable to get a credit card in college
because I did not have a credit history. Therefore I built no history
in college. Also, two unfortunate things happened during this time
period. First, my brother rented a movie with my card and never
returned it. By the time I found out about this I was able to settle
the issue with an apologetic management, but neither of us were able
to stop the collections agency from posting it to my credit history.
Second, I lived in a house with a bunch of fraternity guys. The
electric bill was never in my name, but the lease was, and upon my
moving out (and others moving in) the bill was somehow switched to my
name. When the new tenants decided not to pay the electric bill for
the last three months they were there, I got stuck with the charge. I
was unaware of this until I checked my credit report a couple of years
later.
Luckily I had about $20,000 in student loans and this is helping to
fix my credit, but I still cannot get any new credit to expedite the
healing process. I recently disputed the two adverse accounts but will
not hear back for a while. So my question is two-part.
1. What are my chances of having either of these adverse accounts
removed due to my disputes? Is there any legal action I could take
against the companies (not the credit agencies) if they are not
removed? I'm mostly looking for personal experience or tribal
knowledge here, not any actual legal research.
2. My main question is this: if the accounts are not successfully
disputed, should I go ahead and pay them or wait till they expire.
One is for $100 and expires 06/07 and the other is for over $600 but
expires in 12/07. It seems I've read that if you pay the accounts
they reactivate for another seven years and I certainly dont want
this. But I also dont want to wait two years to buy a house so if
paying these accounts would significantly help my credit score, I'm
willin to do this.
Thanks in advance for any advice. |
