I have lots of questions on Credit Reporting :D

[erinmi]

DH & I are almost to the end of our 60 days (one week-April 5th !!!) and I pulled all three of our credit reports from myfico.com to see where we stood.

Scores were not as bad as I thought they might be but there are definitely some errors.

Question 1:
Does it matter if the balance reports $0 or Not Reported?

Question 2:
Can I dispute if they are reporting 90+ days late even if we were never late prior to filing? Most of the lates are showing up as of January 2008 and we filed December 2007 (almost all are on our Experian CRs).

Question 3:
HSBC charged off a short sale deficit on my husband's account in November 2008. We included this amount in our bankruptcy. How should this be reported? $0 and IIB? $0 and charged off?
Two CRA show it as charged off with the full balance. One shows it as IIB and $0.

Question 4:
We have a couple accounts that are still reporting as in good standing with a balance that we included in our BK. One is an auto loan and one is a Kohls card. Should I dispute those to read IIB and $0? Should I leave them alone and see if they change?

Right now I have Equifax's scorewatch but it only allows unlimited pulls of Equifax for free, though it reports changes to all credit reports. Should I switch to TrueCredit while we are correcting so we can get unlimited pulls on each agency? Or is there a better choice? Now that I have an idea on our actual FICO scores, I only want to see the trends Once I think everything is reporting correctly, I will probably pull scores from myfico again.

Thanks,
Erin

[persephone]

I have truecredit and LOVE it. I am a bit obsessive about pulling though. I would get the TC to see if all your credit reports have the same accounts listed. It would be upsetting to me to dispute only the ones on equifax and wait all that time to find I could have done them all at once (provided they are different).

[cali girl]

I can only answer a few questions, because I'm still learning myself. But here goes nothin'!!

DH & I are almost to the end of our 60 days (one week-April 5th !!!) and I pulled all three of our credit reports from myfico.com to see where we stood.

Scores were not as bad as I thought they might be but there are definitely some errors.

Question 1:
Does it matter if the balance reports $0 or Not Reported?

Question 2:
Can I dispute if they are reporting 90+ days late even if we were never late prior to filing? Most of the lates are showing up as of January 2008 and we filed December 2007 (almost all are on our Experian CRs). YES!!! They cannot report after you filed. That's another form of collection action and that is what your automatic stay is there for.

Question 3:
HSBC charged off a short sale deficit on my husband's account in November 2008. We included this amount in our bankruptcy. How should this be reported? $0 and IIB? $0 and charged off?
Two CRA show it as charged off with the full balance. One shows it as IIB and $0.

Question 4:
We have a couple accounts that are still reporting as in good standing with a balance that we included in our BK. One is an auto loan and one is a Kohls card. Should I dispute those to read IIB and $0? Should I leave them alone and see if they change? LEAVE THEM ALONE!! Just monitor them and see what happens.

Right now I have Equifax's scorewatch but it only allows unlimited pulls of Equifax for free, though it reports changes to all credit reports. Should I switch to TrueCredit while we are correcting so we can get unlimited pulls on each agency? Or is there a better choice? Now that I have an idea on our actual FICO scores, I only want to see the trends Once I think everything is reporting correctly, I will probably pull scores from myfico again.

Thanks,
Erin

[erinmi]

Persephone:
Yeah, I think we are going to switch to TrueCredit instead of the Scorewatch. At least while I'm trying to clean things up!

Cali Girl:
Thanks for answers. This stuff is so confusing!

Anyone else? Please

[sharksfan]

True Credit rocks. It's never too early to correct items reporting incorrectly!