No such luck, good to know though. I had a Providian way back when, which became Washington Mutual, which became Chase. I went 120+ late with it and wound up paying it in full before it charged off, fortunately.

When I became interested in building credit early last year, I disputed the tradeline off, not realizing the late would age off in only a few months and I'd be left with a nice 10+ year old positive tradeline to work with until 2019. Wish I'd have done more reading before taking action. TU didn't have it on file. Experian had already aged the lates off, so I didn't dispute it there, but I disputed it on Equifax, where they had not aged off, and they deleted it on both.

Probably doesn't matter much now, except for the curiosity of where my score would be with an AAoA of 2+ years instead of <1. The moral of the story is that if you have an account with lates approaching 7 years of age that didn't charge off, just leave it alone.


Edit: I don't think I've seen it mentioned here, but Credit Sesame has switched from using Experian to using TransUnion for their data. So effectively there's no point in using both Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. CK pulls TU and EQ weekly, CS pulls only TU monthly. CK>CS. Not that it matters, but they also switched to using the Vantage Score, which CK switched to, so even the scoring is the same now.

I had some dental work done last September. I'm insured, and paid the co-pay and uncovered work with credit card that they put under my name. Some weeks later, I got a bill from them for about the same amount as I paid at the time of the visit. I was confused because I thought I had paid everything at the time of the work, so not long after getting the bill I stopped in. I told the receptionist I'd gotten a bill I wasn't sure about, and she looked up my account in the computer. She said there wasn't anything there, as far as she could tell I didn't owe anything, and it must have been a mistake.

A couple weeks later, I got an automated phone call asking me to call the office. The call came at 5PM on the dot, and when I called I got a recording stating the office hours ended at 5. This happened about once a week for a few weeks before I went back in. Again, looked me up, nothing. I continued to get occasional calls and ignored them.

This past week I got a letter from a collection agency for the debt. I obviously don't want to pay them, I would rather talk to the dentist about what exactly I'm being charged for, and if it's a mistake, have them withdraw the complaint. Is that even feasible? They sold a debt to a company whose business model is collecting it, is there a mechanism for them to admit a mistake and take that possible revenue stream away from that business?

I'm ticked off about this, the last time my credit was pulled was maybe 3-5 years ago and was something like 830 or 860. I'm not expecting to need to take on anything that would require a check in the near future, but would hate to be stuck having to pay a collections agency and take a hit.

My advice to you is to post that verbatim in the medical forum on creditboards.com.

Don't talk to the collector, whatever you do. I think the doctor should be able to have the collector delete it, but barring that, the hippa process detailed on creditboards will get it deleted.

If you have receipt from said payment already, even better.

Does anyone have experience with Amex Platinum's "free upgrades at fine hotels" feature? It seems like this perk would quickly make the $450 annual fee worth it with just a couple upgrades if frequently usable. Anyone know how often the upgrades go through?

I'm pretty sure it just means access to Amex's Fine Hotels and Resorts, which is actually a pretty cool collection - try googling it. I know onemileatatime uses it quite a bit and will have some reviews for you.

Also consider the $200 airline reimbursement credit nearly halves the annual fee on the Amex Plat. But I wouldn't get it without a 100k MR offer. (Alternatively there is a 25k MR offer right now that waives the annual fee the first year which you might prefer)

Hoping someone can help with this situation, somewhat credit related.

My mother is getting calls from a collection agency trying to collect on a debt originally owed to Paypal. My mother has never had a paypal account (this i am sure of, she hardly uses e-mail, etc.). It is possible that my father (they divorced ~8 years ago) opened an account in her name, though I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have had access to her banking information.

The agency is calling daily and asking for an address (I assume her address so they can mail her a collection letter?), and are telling her that the debt is "from a long time ago."

What is her play here? Can she hire a lawyer to deal with this? I assume that the amount is high enough that she wouldn't want to pay it but I do not know the amount right now.

Going forward I have heard good things about LifeLock so will have her signup for that unless anyone has some other identity/credit protection strategies.

Thank you for any assistance you may be able to provide, and let me know if I can provide more information.

There is a fairly decent chance that is a scam, not a legit debt collector.

I should note that my father has a history of doing stuff like this so if it was possible for him to have opened a paypal account in my moms name and get free money out of it there's a decent chance that he has done it.

How would she go about finding out if it is a legitimate debt?

See if the debt is reported on any of her credit reports. If not I would just ignore the calls and assume scam.

To update: I talked to the office manager today. Their computer system showed I had an unpaid bill, but when she pulled my physical file, it didn't have an itemized bill. The manager said that since she couldn't determine what the bill was for, she would just zero out the amount owed. I didn't look closely enough at the collection notice and the address for payment was the chain's address, so it wasn't actually sold to a collection agency, it was their in-house people. She zeroed it out, printed me a receipt showing nothing owed, and sent me on my way. Hooray!

Make sure they delete it. Paid collections hurt about the same as unpaid.

It never actually made it to a collection agency.

He meant from credit reports

I guess I'm confused because I didn't think retail establishments made reports to credit agencies. I thought that was for credit companies like VISA or a car dealership, or collection agencies. But you're saying any corner diner can report me and my credit will take a hit?

iirc all you have to do is be approved by the company to are reporting to.

It's possible they have internal collections handling, best to check your reports. Probably not though. I'd glossed over the part about it your realization that the letter was from the dentist and not third party collections.

Thanks for the heads-up, I'll keep an eye on it.

Total credit newb:

If you have a $500 limit bank credit card, is it smarter to only use like $250 of it per month and pay it off in full every cycle, or would spending the full $500 be better for building credit? I would think as long as you don't carry a balance, spending the full $500 would probably build credit quicker, or am I completely wrong? Thanks.

Best thing to do is to buy everything with it. Pay in full when you are nearing the limit. (It's fine to make more than one payment a cycle with nearly every issuer.) Before the close of the cycle, pay the entire balance so that the statement cuts with no balance (or a small balance.)

For credit scoring purposes, lower utilization is better, and your balance is typically reported when your statement cuts. For purposes of a good relationship with the bank, you want to use it a lot. That way, you can get line increases later.

That's a bit simplistic, but with one card that's probably all you need to know for now.

I just want to say thanks for this thread. Using this as a primary resource I was able to get my credit score into the mid 7s even after some poor history. I feel like such an adult.

Thanks mrage.

Another basic question, if I have a $500 limit and I make a $500 purchase on day 1 of the billing cycle and pay it off it full the following day from my linked checking account, do I have to wait an entire cycle for the $500 to reset or am I free to make another $500 as many times as I want as long as I keep immediately paying it off?

You don't have to wait for the next cycle.

Most CC websites show the "available credit" for your card, that's the number you want to watch.

Once your payment clears, your available credit should go back up.

Check your Amex Offers. I had an offer for $20 off a purchase of $20 or more at samsclub.com. You don't need a membership to shop there, they charge a 10% surcharge if you don't have a membership.

I had one for 20 off 20 at Amazon on two cards. Ship it, literally free money.

Those are the best.