post bankruptcy credit scores

[chuyelchulo]

Hi All,

I haven't yet filed BK but I meet with a lawyer tomorrow for consultation. My question is : How is it that some people come out post discharge with such high credit scores? A friend of mine filed, and after all his scores were just about 660 or so. Before he filed, they were mid 500s. Is it possible that his scores went up because his accounts in BK now reflected a 0 balance, and IBB? I thought BK would have a negative impact on scores. Can anyone explain this?

Thank you

[tobee43]

yes....we were even given our scores before and "after" and they went up over 70 points after...yes, because of he 0 balances.

what surprised us was when we just applied for car insurance this state counts your credit score...so i was upfront with the lady...and told her about the BK....she called back within the hour and said...no way...your scores are just fine...i'm like...EXCUSE me??? she said they just are..so we can give you the best rate we have to offer...

works for me...now...that being said, we have NOT applied or even looked at our credit report and will NOT until a few more months pass...i want all the "dust" to settle first and then i'll take a look at the reports and work on them after everything has time to catch up.

[ssmdem]

It has to be the zero balances so your debt ratio goes WAY down. Mine currently read "HIGH CREDIT LINE BALANCES" or somethiing similar. Our attorney has said to expect them go up about 50 points after bankruptcy, and as long as we start working on rebuilding our credit, we'll be back in the high 600's most likely within a year. We're reaffirming our auto loan, so that will help - and if I can find a decent secured or unsecured card without a ton of fees, we'll go that route. Not jumping on a card with ridiculous fees just for the sake of the credit score though.

[ryan]

I have read (can't be sure of this) that one factor in a relatively high post BK score may be whether or not you had many lates on credit cards and for how long. If for instance, you managed to keep current on payments and THEN bk, I'd heard that could positively impact the emerging score.

[tobee43]

interesting ryan....we had PERFECT credit...never missed one credit card payment until we HAD to when we filed.

now...we did stop paying the mortgage since we new we were not reaffirming. but against our atty's advise i continued to pay the CC's...actually for a few reasons.

most all the 200k charges were medical payment and i felt morally obligated even tho all the banks knew what they were for and we never missed a payment...approx 2 months before we stopped paying they raised our once 5-7% flat rates for 20 years plus cards up to 39.9%...without us ever missing a beat in 40 years...hence...i should have felt no guilt when i finally did stop paying which as i stated was exactly when we filed....but i did feel terrible and still wanted to pay. (of course the other factor involved here was by this time since they raised the payments so much we couldn't meet them anyway.

one of us according to the ins person said is at 690 and one of us is at 685...and we just got discharged so your reasoning may have something to do with it?

[chuyelchulo]

Wow...the only thing that sucks is that a lot of my credit issues were due to medical bills and unemployment...I had a few credit cards that were charged off, as well as a verizon and t mobile phone bill that got WAAAAAY out of control, so I didn't pay them. The thing is, the main credit cards I had, chase and WaMu, are NOWHERE to be found on my credit report. They were charged off, but I'm not quite sure why the don't appear on my credit report. I'm currently trying to find old bills to see what I even owed them. Another thing is I have a car loan through Navy Federal, so I am trying to sell it so I don't have to include it in my bankruptcy.