BiggerPockets

Found out some disheartening news about my credit report.

Last week I applied for a Bank side loan to make an offer on a rental property. The bank called me today and said that they won't be able to loan me the money due to the low score.

I asked why and it turns out Macy's f--ed up something and my credit score is low because of it. Mind you, I have had 24 payments of on-time mortgage and everything else has not been late. But that is what put me down.

I called up Macy's and they are taking it off my credit history and submitting it back to the credit bureaus. It'll take 30 days. I don't know what it will do to the credit score but I sure hope it goes up to something reputable.

So I'm sort of down about the entire situation. What could I do? Wait or try to get someone else to use their score?

Words of encouragement are welcomed.

Matthew08

Go to FreeCreditReport website and maunually go through the process of ordering each of the credit reports from the big 3 - Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. Do not get the joint report. This is a new federal law that you can get your report from each agency once per year at no cost to you.

The process should take about an hour or so as you have to keep re-entering the same data for each agency.

If you are married do separate reports, not joint. Meaning, have your spouse go through the process to get theirs - that is 6 reports!

Tediously go through each report for errors, and go through the complaint / incorrect info process. It will clear up much quicker this way - 10 to 15 days then by just allowing the system to clear on its own 90+ days.

BTW, as TC said above live and learn. The four principals in my company go through this process once every year in the Fall whether we need to or not.

Hey Space,
Macy's should have faxed you a copy. Call them back and get one as this happens a lot.
Once you have the letter, you can give a copy to your bank. If you know anyone locally who does credit repair, they can do what's called a " rapid rescore" with the credit bureaus. The results usually come back in 2-3 days. The cost runs about $100 but gets the negative removed immediately and your score bounces back up quickly instead of waiting a whole month.
Just an idea!

I highly recommend a service like Creditexpert.com (I don't know how much it cost as I got it for free with MS Money for a year), but they send you an email anytime something changes in your credit report, it could an inquiry, an address change, or something more serious. This lets you keep on top of it.

I also recommend following the advice here to get everything cleared up. Once you have I would also recommend taking a copy of your credit reports with you to the bank. Sit down with the banker and hand them a copy of your reports and have them walk through it with you. While bankers can not generally talk to you about the credit report they pull, there is nothing stopping them from talking to you about the one you brought in. Not to mention this shows the banker you are prepared, you have thought this through and gives you ground to explain anything the way YOU want not the way the credit report wants. If they see anything that may cause them concern make sure you can explain why its there or what happened. If it wasn't your fault then have the responsible party fix it, or if they wont you can dispute anything on your credit report and the dispute will be noted in your credit report.