19.. bad credit, don't know where to begin...

[broxgier]

I'm 19 and was extremely extremely stupid when I turned 18 and got credit cards, did my thing, ran up the bill, they ran up the late fees... etc... I have settled and paid them all off, but now I am unable to get ANYTHING, credit card, personal loan, etc, that would help rebuild my credit. I have no idea where to begin. I do not want this affecting me the rest of my life, or for the full next seven years... Where should I start? I don't want credit cards to have "fun" with now, I want one to rebuild my credit so I have a chance at owning a home and nice car in the future. Please reply with any help possible.

Thanks , Nick.

[broxgier]

Any ideas or is this a dead forum?

[chane]

Have you been to the beginners section or did you just decide to skip that and ask the same question that hundreds of others have already asked? :D

Beginner's Credit Information

[broxgier]

I love sarcasm!!! That's always the BEST help! For those reading this. I contacted a LOCAL credit union and will be receiving a secured visa card. It's always best to work with someone local, and as stated in other threads that I have read , credit unions are the best to work with if you have no credit or bad credit.

[chane]

I'm just having fun with ya. But really, if you check out the beginner's section you will find the best techniques for removing the negative items from your credit report. Once you read through that completely, let us know if you have any questions (first do a search to make sure it hasn't already been asked) and we will be glad to help.

[decadude]

bro definitely listen to chane and read everything you can in the beginners section. I dont know how successful I will be in this journey but I feel my odds are heavily elevated. Knowledge is power!

So far I have opted out
I initially pulled my free annual credit report then I disputed personal information on there first just b/c I heard its typically easy to get this removed so I did it online. All my old personal information is gone with exception of Experian they said I had two previous addresses tied to trade lines but on TransUnion and Equifax all that shows is my current phone number current address Name social well last 4 b/c thats how I roll and well you get the point no previous employers had them all deleted all previous phone numbers the bare minimum so it feels good getting these steps out of the way.

I then purchased my credit report so when I file disputes and do debt validations I want to reference the paid for reports to not allow the CA the additional 15 days.

Right now though I am having fits getting a paid for report from experian though.

Somehow from what I gather experian and freecreditreport are one in the same

I went here

I also have my free credit report and it is better than the one off the site

I used the number on this site

experian.com/customer_service/mail.html

Used the number to obtain my paid for report the login is here

experian.experiandirect.com

It looks like an experian address but I have no report file number or anything

All this just seems weird. I thought freecreditreport and experian were different companies

[decadude]

experian does go through their sister company for online copy of your report freecreditreport.com and consumerinfo is what you are directed to if you go off their website for the paid report.

THESE REPORTS WILL NOT HAVE A REPORT NUMBER, LOL

How I had to get my report number was do a dispute on freecreditreport.com's website then there was a screen that flashed the dispute number.

Now here is how I got a good non crap copy of my credit report. I did the dispute process through experian's website to dispute personal info and from here you can print your report and it will look like your annualcreditreport.com report and you can print and it will have the report file number on there

I like having I nice electronic copy as well as paper copy. I am just weird like that. I like pdf format as my preferred format.