I pulled my credit report yesterday. I don't pull my report often enough. I know that you can get a free report form each of the three companies once per year. So the best strategy is to pull each of the three every four months. I just don't do it often enough. It's probably been 12-18 months since I last pulled it.
What I've done is recorded the date and reporting company in the same spread sheet where I keep my budget, balance sheet, and amortization schedules. That way I can keep better track of when and where I pulled my last report, and keep on a better schedule.
I have a total of 17 negatives, from two credit companies on my report. The first has a string of 11 negatives ranging from May 2009 - March 2010, where I was 30 - 120 days past due. The other has a string from August 2008 - November 2008 where I was 30 - 90 days past due, plus March 2010, and October 2010 where I was 30 days past due. Note that I started becoming active on the SA forums around October 2010.
If negatives stay on a report for seven years, my first string of four will start dropping August through November this year. May of next year through March 2017 will see the end of the entire string from the other card, and the last negative will drop off October 2017. But, that's a long time from now.
According to my current Discover card statements, my credit score hovers between 720 and 725 any given month. It will be interesting to see how my score comes in as these negatives drop.
I also did something I should have done a long, long time ago. There were three open accounts listed that I don't use. One was a credit card I no longer use, one was a store card I opened when I bought a suit at a department store, and the third was an Amazon card I opened two Christmases ago. I called today, and had each of those accounts closed. We'll see what that does to my score.
This credit report monitoring is something I think I can and will keep up on from now on.
Credit Maintenance
February 25th, 2015 at 03:23 pm
February 25th, 2015 at 03:46 pm 1424879173
February 25th, 2015 at 03:47 pm 1424879269
February 25th, 2015 at 04:44 pm 1424882642
You might try sending a goodwill letter to the creditors who are showing the older negatives and asking them to remove them early. It never hurts to ask! I've had about a 50% success rate, but I never pursued the issue past the first request. More info on the process and some sample letters here:
http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/GW-letter-Q-amp-A-Examples-and-GW-Success-Stories/td-p/1040382
or http://tinyurl.com/pojel96 if that doesn't work.
February 25th, 2015 at 05:45 pm 1424886311
February 25th, 2015 at 05:48 pm 1424886507
February 26th, 2015 at 02:18 am 1424917092
I hadn't heard about the goodwill letter, but I think that is an excellent idea!