Navigating the twisty turns from Millinocket to Norcross can be horrifying late at night when your engine is running on only three cylinders and your flashlight’s batteries are dead in the days before cell phones which don’t work out in the deep woods even today. 

Navigating the Fair Credit Reporting Act to the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act can be just as intimidating. 

Creating the right letter to send to the right person to settle a debt, without help of any sort, is not so simple as it sounds. I’m an attorney, and I didn’t want to do it either. What if the debt is now with a debt collector, such as Portfolio Recovery or Midland Funding, and the debt collector has sent letters to explain that they are now on the account, can the debt be settled with the original owner, such as Macy’s or Capital One? 

If Hunt & Henriques, Attorneys at Law, have already obtained a judgment for their clients, Cavalry Portfolio, what percentage of the debt would one likely have to pay in order to settle it? Or what if the judgement has been turned into a lien on the borrower’s home already, how much then? Will it be ridiculous? 

Maybe a bankruptcy would be better, and sometimes it is. But bankruptcy should be the last resort. If you have no resources, no extra car to sell, no 401k to borrow from, no jewelry left over from a previous or unrequited love, or no one in the family who might make you a low interest loan, or if the creditor won’t take a payment plan, (they seldom do) perhaps a bankruptcy is the right next step. 

But assuming bankruptcy is not right for you, knowing what to do next to restore credit to its good health is important. Buying a car might have to be put on hold, or buying a house might never happen. Paying for a vacation might have to wait years because all the money that would have been saved for the vacation is going to pay high interest rates on the car and truck so mom and dad can get to work. 

On the other hand, credit repair could be as simple as that there are not enough good things on your credit reports. I remember when I realized that once all the bad things were off my credit reports that there was basically nothing left on them. My credit reports looked like I was a high school graduate. I had to open a couple of credit cards in order to make things right.

So I went to my own bank and gave them $1000 and they gave me a credit card with a $1000 credit line. It’s called a secured credit card. For me that was step two in the credit restoration process, adding good trade lines to my credit reports. You can do it with a lot less money than $1000, usually you can start with as low as $300. Then, after using the card, don’t pay it off all at once, pay it off over three (3) months instead. Save up the amount of the credit line, buy the thing for that much money, and then pay it off in thirds. 

Credit card companies prefer to see that  a customer actually needs the credit card before they increase a customer’s credit line. 

Do that a few times and your credit line will increase over a year or two, and so will credit ratings increase over that year or two and if you do it with at least two accounts, there’s a big boost to all credit ratings in not much time at all.