Please help re: Credit Report

[dustinc]

My credit score really took a hit after I filed BK. I had NO late payments until I filed, so that's the reason. My score was 680 and now it is 538, 610 and 560. I have a lot of questions regarding what my credit report should be showing so any help would be appreciated:

1. My Mortgage company is not reporting to Transunion. Anything I can about that?
2. The balance amount on the accounts that were discharged are blank not zero. It does say included in BK. Is this normal?
3. Experian shows 30 day late Nov, 60 day late Dec and 90 day late Jan and included in bk for Feb on many of my discharged accounts. Should it show the late payments at all?
5. My student loan and mortgage say included in bk, but my mortgage was reaffirmed and of course I'm still paying on my student loan. Should these accounts say anything about BK?

Thanks so much for your help.

[StartingOver08]

1. I don't know. If they normally report to TU then you should be able to get them to report, but if they historically do not report to TU, then I don't know how you could entice/force them to report.

2. Having a blank field in the balance section is very, very bad for your score and a violation by the creditor. This seems to be a favorite trick by the creditors. I had to dispute each and every account with the CRA to get the proper reporting and when I did (had them put in zero rather than a blank) my FICO (I don't use FAKO scores) score increased tremendously to the 660's.

3. NO LATES CAN BE REPORTED AFTER THE FILING DATE. This seems to be another favorite trick of the creditors - reporting lates while you are in BK. Dispute it, they will remove them. If you have lates reported prior to filing, those are allowed to be on your report.

4. I am not sure about the reaffirmed TL. I reaffirmed an auto loan and it shows reaffirmed and pays as agreed. The history shows intact. But I recently read something on another board about reaffirmations showing on a TL not being good for your report. I will look for it again and post here. I really don't know what is best with this issue.

[BuckeyeGuy13]

SO, quick question about the balance reported during a Chapter 13... Do they need to show a $0 or is this only true after a discharge/close?

[StartingOver08]

I don't know about Ch 13's as my direct experience is with a ch 7.

Read this link and maybe the answer is here. The entire section is devoted to BK reporting and case law. http://debt-consolidation-credit-rep...d.php?t=249451

[BuckeyeGuy13]

Thanks for the link. I appreciate the response!

[BuckeyeGuy13]

Well, I just checked it out... For anyone that may read this and is a CH 13, the $0 balance must show upon discharge.

Which, of course, makes complete sense now that I think about it...

[dustinc]

I was under the impression from reading other posts that they aren't supposed to show late payments even before filing, but I guess it makes sense that they do. I wish I would have kept paying up until the filing date now. Oh well...

Please let me know what you find out about how my student loan and mortgage should be reporting. I would think that they both should not say anything about the BK since they were not affected in any way. Also, what do you mean by "TL"? Thanks for your response.

[StartingOver08]

TL = tradeline (any OC/CA is a tradeline)

Look in this part of the link for how your student loan and mortgage should be reporting. If you did not reaffirm the mortgage, but you continue to pay on it, it still should be noted "included in bankruptcy" and zero balance. You can not exclude a debt from your BK except as a reaffirmation.

http://www.myfaircredit.com/forum/

The student loan was included in your filing, but is non-dischargeable. I don't know how that TL is to read. See the link above for details.

[dustinc]

I followed the link but don't see any information on how the student loan should be reporting.

[dustinc]

What about old accounts that were closed and paid off prior to BK? The balance on those are blank too? Should I dispute that and make it state "$0" or does it matter?

[StartingOver08]

If you have been discharged from a Ch 7, then all the prior account balances should say zero now.

[dustinc]

If you have been discharged from a Ch 7, then all the prior account balances should say zero now.

Let's pretend I never filed BK. What I mean is that I have several paid off accounts that might say "Paid" in comments but the balance is blank. Does it need to state zero or does that not really matter? thanks for your help.

[StartingOver08]

Yes, since the account is paid and your balance is zero, the balance needs to read zero.

From what I have gathered on the FICO forums site (not an expert here, just reading up on it everywhere), the balance has to read a 'number' and not a blank field to be included in the scoring formula. Naturally, that number needs to be zero on a paid account.