Finally!!!

[xcracer522]

Just got my letter from my trustee stating that my plan is finally paid out!! I am working now to get my credit report cleaned up. I was curious - how often should I request a report once I dispute existing problems to make sure they have been corrected? Also - how much does a report from all three reporting agencies normally cost once you have received the annual freebee? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[rrockinggramma]

I initially pulled my scores from myfico.com Then I signed up for TruCredit 3 in 1 credit monitoring from Transunion. You can pull your reports everyday and check for updates etc.

[Flamingo]

Did you receive your discharge yet? The best thing to do is to wait a few months after your discharge is in place then get all three of your reports; that allows time for the discharge to appear on the reports because if you attempt to clean up your reports before that, when the discharge comes through, as we have found out, it can create all sorts of issues and problems in the old information reverting back in cleaned up acccounts. It can be a frustrating mess to be in a hurry to clean up reports. Don't be in a hurry - we are almost two years beyond discharge and thought we had everything cleaned up totally last fall - when we pulled our reports earlier this year, all sorts of strange stuff appeared and cleaned up accounts were back with charge offs listed, accounts showing to be part of our bankruptcy when they were open AFTER our discharge, and a new "Date First Major Deliquency Was Reported" showing up listing dates just prior to and even a year after discharge.

Take your time, dispute as needed and unless you seriously need your credit cleaned up quickly or if you suspect problems, issues or fraud, there is no reason to get your reports more than every six months. You get them once a year free - you will have to pay for anything after that or if you join a service. You will have that BK showing on there for 7 years after filing and just be diligent during that time. Ours comes off starting next April and believe me, we cannot wait! At the moment, I have just sent more dispute letters out, directed to creditors and copying Equifax (the perpetrator of the new "Date First Delinquence Was Reported" issue I, and others, seem to be encountering).

[Cali]

The CRA's are suppose to send you a new credit report after each dispute has been fixed/or left the same.

[xcracer522]

Thanks guys - I just started this process yesterday and I'm doing so primarily because my car is just about dead and I'm in desperate need for a new "used" one. This all came about when I applied for a loan the other day and they came back and said that I had 3 charged off auto's on my report. So I requested a free copy of my report and man, what disaster that was. I have a couple things going against me. The first - I initially filed a chapter 7 and it was denied primarily because I made too much money and my lawyer was an idiot and told me that I would be fine in a 7 even after I told him I thought 13 was the way to go (there's more to that story but I'll savfe that for another day). So I then found a new lawyer and immediately converted to a 13. So most of my negative accounts were showing up on the report as a 7 and not a 13. The second issue against me was the charged off auto's. I had a 2003 Ford F150 when I filed and I was in a pretty serious accident and totaled the truck. The insurance company paid off the truck and my attorney got my bank to issue me a new loan (within the 13) for a used vehicle so I had something to drive. Man did that ever create a mess on the report. I called equifax yesterday and dispute the negative accounts and was going to start on Experian next. Believe me I didn't want to worry about purchasing another vehicle for a while but I'm in a pinch. I got my in-laws to lend me one of their vehicles for a while and I'm going to milk that as long as I can but in the meantime I need to try and at least get the charge-offs off from my report - sounds like that's easier said than done. On the positive, my score is a little better than I thought it was going to be 680 with experian and 603 with equifax (not that those scores are great, but they are better than I thought they would be).

[BigJohn]

When you go to a car dealer, they generally use an auto credit report. As far as I know, we can't get our hands on our auto report, can not contest anything on the report (obviously) and the dealer doesn't disclose they are using the auto credit report. Fixing a credit report is good but if we can not see the auto credit report, what can we do?

When we bought my wife's car, my experian was 688. It was a few months earlier, 729. But my auto credit scrore was about 530. Figure it out, I can't.

[xcracer522]

Auto credit report? Has anyone else heard of this - is there really a difference in what the dealers use? If I get my reports cleaned up with the three major repoting agencies am I still screwed when it comes to auto dealers?

[1/2 way in OR]

I read something that auto lenders care more about your previous auto loans than if you paid your cable...etc.. on time. MSN money or somewhere, don't recall where I read it.