Credit Report

Yesterday I got a copy of my credit report from Experian. There was a mistake on it that stated I have a Capital One card still open. Well, actually I have two open, but used to have five!

What happened was, over a year ago I received a letter that they would combine two of my accounts and give me a low rate until the combined total was paid off. When I took advantage of the offer, they combined four of the accounts (instead of just two) and one was left untouched. Therefore, I now have two Capital One accounts active.

Back to the report. It shows that I have three active Capital One cards and I had to figure out which one was in question since the report does not show the whole account number. That's when I called Capital One.

I got a very nice lady on the phone and she helped me out by looking at my accounts. On their records, I have two active and three closed which she couldn't understand either. She set something up to send me a letter stating that the account is closed and afterwards asked me if I wanted her to submit a request to Experian for me! I took her up on that offer.

She told me it would take 60-90 days for my credit report to be updated so I'll have to check back on that.

Another thing on my report states as follows: Paid, was a collection account, insurance claim or government claim or was terminated for default.

Does anyone know what this means??? It was a $248 Vet bill that I let go to collections (yeah, I know, STUPID!!) and I eventually paid it off in full.

Other than that, the rest looked good and a lot of bad stuff has FINALLY been cleared from my report!! My score from Experian is 634 which is down from 656 in August 2007, but up from the 500s in previous years. I'm sure this collections thing on my report is holding me back from having a better score, as well as being maxed out on my cards.

I'm working on it!