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No, you shouldn't do that. Pick up The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and follow the debt snowball method of paying them off. It's available in hard copy or audiobook. I recommend both, honestly. The audiobook is great to listen to while driving.

Essentially, you order all of your cards from lowest to highest balance. You make minimums on everything except the smallest and hammer it out, then move on up the list. You need to be serious about this though and get your lifestyle in check. No going out to eat. Beans and rice at home. Pick up a part time job delivering pizza or something.

You can do this without wasting money on debt consolidation. Take control of it yourself and you'll do well. I suspect you bought way more house than you could afford without a proper emergency fund, and "stuff" happened that needed to be fixed that would have otherwise been a landlord's responsibility, right?

Dutch Uncle Mode: ON

• You can't dig your way out of a hole and you can't borrow your way out of debt.
• Stop spending money.
• If you can't eat it or live in it, don't spend money on it.
• Give BofA every nickle of the rest until it's paid off.

> I have a Bank of America credit card with 9,999 limit. It is maxed out currently and I am trying to pay it off as I am drowning in interest.

Yes, I imagine you are.

> I read the best route is to get a chase no interest for 15 months card and transfer the balance. I make around 45k a year and my credit is well over 700. I went into chase today to apply for a chase slate card, and was approved for a mere $500!! Anyone know why?

Sure. Because you're a bad risk and have proven that you run up bills you can't pay.

> I make a decent amount for someone in their mid 20's and have great credit.

You make good money but you don't have "great credit". ~700 is "OK credit" and puts you in the "probably won't default" range.

Chase won't give you another $10K to transfer to because you've proven you couldn't deal with the $10K from BofA.

Go to the library and read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. You can ignore the religious aspect, but the finance is sound.

OK:

• Food
• Shelter
• Transportation

Don't even think about:

• Coffee that you didn't make at home, or wasn't free somewhere like work.
• Stepping into a restaurant.
• Fast food
• Cable TV
• A cell phone that costs more than $30/month.
• Anything that comes with "easy monthly payments"

> Edit: Do I have options here? Any benefit dropping FDR and contacting the creditor directly?

I'd suggest starting with that. FDR is apparently just scam to take what little money you have left.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2010/07/freedom-debt-relief/index.htm

Also there's no such thing as a "settlement plan warrant"

> The creditor is no longer the original creditor (USAA) but a collections company.

Your credit is already trashed. However the good news is that the collections agency paid almost nothing for your debt and you can probably make them go away for pennies on the dollar. See "Pay for Deletions Guide" in the sidebar.

The 30% number is commonly used as the benchmark to avoid disaster. According to credit expert John Ulzheimer the folks with the highest scores average 7% credit utilization.

According to FICO, the consumers who have the highest scores in the country (760 and above) have an aggregate utilization of 7%. That’s about as clean of an answer you’re ever going to get to a FICO score question. Of course that doesn’t prevent people from giving answers that are all over the place. I’ve seen 30%, I’ve seen 50% and I’ve even seen 70%

https://www.mint.com/blog/goals/credit-utilization-02282011/

The good news is the age of your accounts will not impacted by closing a credit card as it will remain on your report for several years.

https://www.mint.com/blog/credit/6-credit-myths-that-refuse-to-die-0214/

However, you will be hit in the credit utilization ratio category; this accounts for 30% of your FICO score. When you close cards you lose available credit lines.

Not to not answer your question, but read this and see if it answers your questions: https://www.reddit.com/r/CRedit/wiki/how_is_your_score_calculated

There is a link in there as well for credit utilization, so I think it will answer what you are asking - but let me know if you have any questions after reading that.

I would request written verification of the debt. They have to prove that you owe the money. Heck, if they cannot verify the debt from the original "creditor" they cannot do a thing.

You can then challenge the entry on your credit reports. If the debt is unverifiable it would have to be removed.

Before accepting any "pay for delete" deals please read the following:

https://www.mint.com/blog/credit/what-is-a-pay-for-delete-deal-from-a-collection-agency-0713/

Sell one of the vehicles - or something else. Do not title loan. You could also try Lending Club. I've used them. I don't know how terrible your credit is. I got a 40 month, $6k personal loan at 6%... paid it back in 6 months. With Lending Club, you're borrowing from other people who pick up your request, rather than an actual bank... LC is just the mediator. You don't know who the person is, your payments go right back through LC. Kind of a neat system.

But yeah man, as an aside, you should really take a hard look at your financial habits. With that kind of income, you should be in great shape and something you need $10k for should only be as painful as grabbing it out of your emergency fund. I'd recommend picking The Total Money Makeover for some good guidance on digging out of debt.

The BBB is a for-profit company that is pay-to-play. Their stars ratings are very controversial. If you check out their Wiki there have been several stories about this. Also, their score is based on < 200 people.

If you want a trusted rating, check out their app store reviews: > https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.creditkarma.mobile&amp;hl=en > https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/credit-karma-credit-scores-reports-alerts/id519817714?mt=8

Hundreds of thousands of users have given them 4 or 5 stars and millions of Americans have already signed up. Also the reviews do a good job highlighting some of the downsides of their service too.

> Fucking idiot.

I love you too.

> I have never had a bad experience with Fingerhut, neither have any of my referrals, the site is to build credit from bad, or 0 credit with a single purchase, ilI usually suggest a purchase of less than $100.

Do you have a burning desire to pay $1,170 for a nice $800 Dell Computer?

The site isn't there to "build good credit". It's to sell cheap stuff at a huge markup to a captive audience.

Nothing like getting boned for an extra 47% over the normal selling price to prove you're credit-worthy.

This one:

https://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Hope-History-World-Time/dp/094500110X

The other, newer version is about 800 pages, and watered-down... I wonder why.

Not normal. I suggest ordering all new cards and doing a full and thorough security check on your computer. If you don't have an anti-virus/malware app, get one ASAP (I like Malwarebytes). Check your flash drives for malware, too as those can get infected and spread to other devices. After checking your PC for malware, I suggest also investing in a VPN (like NordVPN or Surfshark) and use that any time you are doing banking or paying for stuff online.

Also are you shredding your mail? People just throw their mail away willy nilly and ID thieves dumpster dive for anything with personal information - name, address, phone numbers - they can get your identity with very little information. Anything with my name on it - Amazon boxes, mail labels, or DoorDash receipts - get removed and cross shredded. A good cross shredded for $30 at Walmart is a good investment.

Get a copy of your credit report and consider getting a membership with Experian to always keep track of your credit report so this sort of anxiety never holds you hostage again.

With that said, how did you not realize that you weren't paying a phone bill? You need to do better with that. Consider downloading an app called Prism. Puts all your finances in one place; you can even pay the bill on the App. And it's free.

Have you heard of this thing called a search engine? Apparently it's this thing on the inter-webs where you can enter a search query and research stuff and learn things in mere seconds. It's pretty neat.

I wrote the above because it took you more time to write your comment then it would have for you to make a search query on a search engine. That and because I like to be a sarcastic ass from time to time.

If I can provide you any advice on what reviews to trust, NEVER trust sites for reviews that get paid for them. I.e. Credit Karma and Wallet Hub among a number of others.

A simple query yielded this result which is considered a reputable source after sifting through the bullshit paid site reviews.

Edit: Accidentally included link to just the consumer submitted images. Corrected link.

Here is something that is worth reading:

What is a “Pay for Delete” Deal from a Collection Agency?

This article may help:

What is a “Pay for Delete” Deal from a Collection Agency?

https://www.mint.com/blog/credit/what-is-a-pay-for-delete-deal-from-a-collection-agency-0713/

Sprint may call off the collection agency but it does not mean the agency has to or can rescind their report. You owed the money when you were reported hence it is not an error.

Good luck! It's actually a bit of a complicated process, so if you are serious, I recommend grabbing something like [this)(https://www.amazon.com/Nolos-Essential-Guide-Buying-Guidel/dp/1413323456/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=how+to+buy+your+first+home&amp;qid=1564673697&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-4) off Amazon. It was super helpful!

I'm 24 and have felt the same feelings. 703 is admirable though, don't be too down about that! Here's a guide on Amazon if you want to understand credit better.

From what I know, keeping your utilization low is a big one! Upping your credit card limits as much as possible will really help with that and you may see your score jump by 5-10 points when you do that.

Length of Credit History is a big one too. Us young people are at a disadvantage. Also, NEVER cancel a credit account that will affect that in a negative way. I canceled a card once and my score dropped way more than I thought it would.

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Cheers!

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https://www.amazon.com/Credit-Score-Repair-Condensed-Understand-ebook/dp/B07XH14FQ8/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=credit+score+repair&amp;qid=1567951917&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-16

You owe $30k on a car that's worth $10k!? I guess you really don't have a good option in getting out from under the car, since you wouldn't be able to give the title to someone that you sold it to anyways. You're stuck with that payment. I'd suggest reducing everything you possibly can and hammer away at that loan with everything you can.

I'd also recommend building out a budget and sticking to it. You might want to pick up Total Money Makeover.

Figured I'd throw that out there , there is also an app that uses mobile website wrappers so it is like having the app minus all the permissions. I myself did not care for all the far reaching permissions . The app is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chimbori.hermitcrab