Checked Credit report. Now what?

[Hagar100]

I would appreciate any input that might be given regarding what steps I should take towards beginning to re-establish my credit rating.

My chapter 7 was filed on 9/27/06, discharged on 01/04/07, and closed on 01/17/07. My credit score was in the low 700's as of July of 2006.

Yesterday, I pulled my free TransUnion credit report on myself (I didn't pull one on my wife as we are legally seperated) and, as best I can detemine, everything appears to be accurate. I did not obtain my FICO score as I didn't want the expense as I am not interested in obtaining a cc at this time, am not in need of an auto or personal loan, and am living a cash existence and making considerable progress towards financial recovery by living this way. I used TU because I received my free reports form the other two in August and September of 2006 and so could not get another from them for free yet.

Five cc companies show adverse actions- "Included in BK" or "Chapter 7 BK" with 4 of the 5 showing no balance and the 5th listing the balance as "0". All five show the account's credit limit and the high balance amount. Four show the pay status as "unrated" while the fifth, Chase, shows that I paid them 30 days late one time (9/07- the month we filed) during the last 48 months. All five list early 2013 as "estimated date that this item will be removed".

There are 18 satisfactory accounts listed, including several that were included in the BK. The pay status on all of these is "Paid or paying as agreed", with no late payments. All but two of the satisfactory accounts, which include mortgage and auto loans as well as credit cards, show a balance of "0" and have been closed by the creditor or myself either in years past or since the BK.

The issues are as follows- (1) My Washington Mutual mortgage was purchased by Wells Fargo in December of 2006 and they have been taking my mortgage payment directly from my checking acoount since 1/1/07 but this is not represented on the report (thankfully I will be mortgage free in June of 2008). Do I need to contact Wells Fargo to see why they are not reporting or will this sort itself out in the near future as my BK has now closed?

(2)- Two Sears/CBSD accounts that were included in the BK are not listed as being closed, still show a balance, and show a minimum payment amount under "Terms", although both list "0" as past due. These two accounts were last updated in May and June of 2006 respectively, which of course was prior to my filing BK. What should my course of action be with these two accounts- notify them or give them time to update their reporting?

What other steps should I be considering. Overall, I am fairly satisfied with what I found in the report (it sure could have been much worse). I do not intend to be obsessive about this, preferring to let time repair much of the damage, but I don't want to ignore it either.

[SinkingFast]

Yours sounds better than ours. Many of our IIB accts show the BK and then say "Charged Off, and/or Bad Debt".

Sears was/is the worst for us. We've disputed, disputed, disputed, and they simply won't fix it.

We've even done the "Validate" the information. Reports contain inaccuracies. And they come back updated. Seems all we're doing is pushing out the date that the reports will continue to show. Every time we dispute adds another month to the time before the reports will drop off our Credit Reports.

I honestly don't know what to tell you. Maybe others will have better input.

FillingOnMyOwn has done some great work at cleaning up Credit Reports. BK'd Betty is another that knows a lot as well. Hopefully they'll chime in for you with some pearls of wisdom.

[bige1030]

I've got the same issue with my Sears MC - still a balance and a payment due on the original item, but no past due notation. It's not listed as adverse on any of my reports. I also have a collection item from that MC which is listed as past due on my Equifax and Experian reports. (Fortunately, it either was taken off my TransUnion report or never showed on it.) At this point, I'm only disputing the collection item. From SF's experience, I don't think I'll dispute the original Sears MC item.

A lot of my IIB accounts have the notation "Purchased by another lender" on them under the creditor comments. I don't know if that's all that bad or what.

Despite all this, I still got a Hooters MC with a $1000 limit and $36 annual fee. Some may see this as a negative step, but I think that it'll help me rebuild sooner so that I have a chance at refinancing my car loan (especially if Chrysler doesn't start reporting again).