Mr. Slant:
“If you begin paying the landlord, you could be resetting the statute of limitations time limit for that debt.
In some cases, that judgment would have become useless at the 7 year point, and have also dropped off your report.
The moment that account goes current again, you just reset the 7 year clock on it being on your credit report.
I’d suggest asking a local lawyer about the statute of limitations on that debt before making payments.”
Yes. Yes, I can do that. Making a note of this on paper.
If the judgement is off the record, and if I do make payments to him nevertheless, maybe nothing will happen to the account, because he is a private party landlord?
Dr. Deth:
“When was the judgement entered against you, and how is this showing up on your credit report?”
It was from 2004. I got reports from all three agencies last September. It showed up as a “judgement” and had the name of the landlord and the amount.
Now, on the electronic reports I see on Identityguard, it is just absent. Guess I’ll call IdentityGuard. Wonder if their reports ARE all-inclusive. They oughta be at $17.99/mo…
I thought I had these huge, complicated debts, causing my bad credit…but as per the IdentityGuard reports, they are much simplified, and appear much more manageable than the printout from last year. Maybe some dropped off. Maybe this is a virtue of having this service. Or maybe their reports are just incomplete.
Mr. Slant:
"Also, the whole getting a credit card thing is stupid. Employers don’t check your score when they pull your report, they check for a pattern of irresponsibility.(italics mine) Having a paid-off Amex Black with a 100K line won’t help you; having a CapOne card over its limit and dozens of judgments will hurt you.
There is no good reason to get a credit card in your shoes. 99% of Americans are injured by credit cards far more than they are helped.
The ‘bad credit’ and secured cards have stupid high fees, and there’s no way they’re worth it.
You don’t say. I mean about employers. Well, that’s nice…but, I still want to raise my score. What if I was responsible with the card? Wouldn’t it raise my score? I am not a big overspender. I’ve never had a credit card. I was told that if I get a secured card, and use it to make purchases and pay it off each month, it would raise my score.
Saving to buy land…need GOOD credit.
While you are spot on on the first part, I disagree completely on the second part of your post. I have applied to a job that only pulled a score, not a full report…but that is a minor quibble. The bigger argument is that a good credit score is extremely valuable if you ever in your lifetime plan to take out a loan for say a house, car, or whatever. Especially for a house you are talking about tens of thousands of dollars potentially being saved. Showing the responsible use of revolving credit lines is necessary to get into the higher 750+ scores. Their are plenty of secured credit cards out there that will be fee free as long as paid in full monthly. Use of a credit cards offers some great benefits as well (depending on the card): cashback, float, fraud protection, warranty extension, travel insurance, exc. Their is certainly people that should not get a credit card, but in the hands of people that have some self control they are extremely valuable.
Fair Isaac Company score - the range is from 300 to 850 (I think).
It’s sort of the industry standard, though there are other models. For example either Experian or Equifax (I forget which) will sell you a score that is similar to the FICO, but is their own algorithm.
The exact algorithm is not public, but some general info is that it’s based on a combination of things. For example paying on time, the mix of credit that you have, ratio of balances to credit limits (for credit cards - if you’ve got cards with total credit limit of 30,000 and your balance total is 5,000, that’s good; if your credit limit is 8,000 and you’ve spent 5,000, that’s bad), average account age (which is why I keep the Bank of America card I opened in 1980, even though I almost never use it)…
“Very good” is 750 and above. 500s is not so good.
I would bet that your credit monitoring service is reporting your FICO score.
Try a free trial at myfico.com - I did that about a year back when we were considering refinancing the house. I had to enter a credit card number (or if you have a bank card that’s Visa or Master-card branded, that would work) - BUT, I could cancel within 2 weeks and they did not charge me.
The reason I suggest this is: when I looked at my score, it gave me feedback on the various aspects (recent inquiries, number of open accounts etc.) on whether such-and-such helped or hurt my score. That might be helpful in letting you see why your score is as low as it is. In my case, I had opened up a credit card account within the previous year, which was a ding (that aged off, ding-wise, I think).
Then, obviously, cancel it before the 2 weeks are up!! :).
It’s possible that Identity Guard also offers that sort of feedback.
Other things that affect your score: recently-opened credit (lowers it), average account age (conversely; raises it, like I said that’s why I keep my ancient Visa card, and why I just made a purchase on a card that was about to be canceled due to non-use). Recent “hard” inquiries (e.g. if you’ve applied for 2 credit cards).
The good thing about recently-opened credit: yeah, it lowers your score - but as the account ages and you have a pattern of responsible use, the score recovers and then, presumably, increases.
The poster who has a very high score but no revolving credit is clearly paying things on time, doesn’t have excessive debt etc. Possibly his (her?) score would be a tad higher with a credit card in the mix but clearly it’s not necessary.
Oh - and do keep paying that student loan in a timely manner, as that will also help your score.
You know, we could assume that the OP is smarter and more responsible than most Americans, or we could assume that any given OP we give advice to is going to be about average in terms of credit card usage.
When discussing risky propositions like getting into debt, I default to the assumption that I’m talking to the average American. Frankly, that means I’m talking to somebody that, during the course of their life, will use credit irresponsibly and may wind up in serious trouble due to it.
Credit cards aren’t a net good to the majority of Americans. I have known any number of ostensibly intelligent professionals that went bankrupt due to mistakes or just plain bad luck, and many of them could have avoided it if they hadn’t used credit cards and other credit products.
If I’m going to lose this argument, though, then my last bit of advice to the OP about credit cards is to not ever get a card with a limit higher than his monthly post-tax wages. That would get him the cashback, warranty, travel insurance, etc features but place him in a less vulnerable position should his fortunes fail him while he is carrying a balance.
I absolutely agree that we can’t make assumptions about the OP, and that for many people, credit is bad. That’s why my original suggestion was to get a credit card and not use it. Put it in a drawer out of sight (and out of mind). Or get a safe deposit box and put it in there. Or even cut the card up after you’ve activated it. Simply having a revolving line of credit available will raise his score faster than not having it. Certainly it would go up even faster if he used it regularly and responsibly, but that’s a risky game to play for most people, especially someone who has never had a card.
The corollary to this is, if you get the card and don’t use it (except for maybe once or twice a year to make sure the bank doesn’t close the account on you), this will (eventually) increase your average account age. All the various sites actually say to NOT close unused credit accounts, because of that very issue - keep 'em open even if you don’t use them.
Once you’ve got a longer credit history, and more varieties of paid-on-time credit, you can always get rid of a truly old account, and it’ll have less impact.
If he does that, he might want to just use it once a month to keep them from closing it.
I’m thinking ONLY putting gasoline for his Ford 500 on it and paying the card in full every month might be a decent compromise.
Not an issue yet, just keep your balance low on any credit card you get
Use card lightly, as everyone has been urging
your credit monitoring service should help with that
when you do get that card, keep it open by using it occasionally (I just did this exact thing with a card that we hadn’t used in 3+ years).
7): not sure this one applies especially since that one delinquency isn’t being reported any more (but keep an eye on it if paying it causes it to reappear)
Judgments are reported for 10 years on your credit report. Whether you make a payment or not makes no difference in this regard. A payment on a judgment does no restart a SOL period, as there is no SOL period anymore. The judgment is already entered!
Typically one can only collect on a judgement for 10 years (varies by state). However, if the landlord files for a renewal of the judgment, he can continue it indefinitely. You will owe it until the day you die.
The landlord cannot remove the judgment. It is part of the court record. It is still showing up because it is 7 years old and judgments go off after 10.
Further, not having a major credit card is a factor that brings down your credit score. Get a card and pay it in full every month.
But having a credit card works for a lot of people. While there are some examples of stupendously stupid behavior, by and large, people use their credit cards responsibly.
I’ve had two credit cards since I was in college. The average combined amount I’ve charged to them a month has always been less than $200, and I’ve paid them off each month without fail. The way I use it ends up being like writing several checks. So, obviously, this method works for me, and it’s worked for everybody in my family.
Also, it just makes things easier. It’s easier to get hotel rooms, rent a car, get airplane tickets, or a bunch of other things if you have one. You can get by without one, but it can be a hassle sometimes.
Yeah, the majority of Americans (59.7%), at least in 2009, did not carry a balance on their credit card at any time in the last 12 months. PDF link here, see page 79.
If you know you can’t handle credit responsibly, then, yeah, you’re better off without a credit card. But the idea that credit cards hurt “99%” of the consumers that use them–that’s silly. Yes, people get in serious trouble with credit cards. But a lot of people are also responsible consumers for whom credit cards are a net positive. Granted, I had a little trouble with them in my early-to-mid 20s, but now I would never consider paying cash unless I need to.
This is very, very bad advice. I went through hell tryign to get a car loan this year precisely because I had no credit heitory. You see, your utilities and rental companies only report you for late layments, they don’t make “good” reports. The only way to get "good " reports is to have a gas card, a store card, or a credit card, or a car loan or mortgage. Otherwise, you are sinking further and further in to credit no-mans-land all the while living as a creature so responsible that American businesses can’t believe you exist.
You lived within your income all those years?!? No, impossible, you must have paid some fly-by-night comppany to wipe a bad credit report.
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Keep asking. Find another company who will do it for you. Gas cards and store cards are a good place to start. Use it and pay it off every month.
Another option to help you out: being added as an authorized user on a family member’s account. Now, I don’t know how much this helps the score, but I think it does have some impact.
There was actually a scam going for a while, where someone with good credit would basically collect a fee for adding a stranger to their account, allowing the stranger to piggyback on the primary’s good credit. FICO etc. wised up to this and clamped down on the practice. So, while it can still help, I’m shaky on how they enforce whether it counts (I think you have to genuinely have access to the account, for example).
Now, I think it’s sort of unethical to game the system this way, and it’s risky for both the account owner (what if you ran up bills in their name) AND you (what if the account owner started behaving badly), BUT it can jumpstart your credit rating improvement to the point where you could get a regular account (not sub-prime) and start working on it yourself.