Personal blog on early retirement, selling tradelines, and analytics projects. I write about what I learn as I am learning it.
I sold tradelines, so I heard from a lot of people who are trying to rebuild credit after something went wrong. Divorce comes up regularly. The credit damage from a split isn’t always obvious at first — sometimes it takes months before the missed payments and joint account problems start showing up on your report, and by then you’re playing catch-up on multiple fronts at once. If you want to learn more about how to how to build credit to buy a house, that post covers the process end to end.
Buyers who come to me looking for a tradeline sometimes mention a derogatory public record on their report like it’s a death sentence. It’s not. But it is a serious item — the kind that stays on your credit profile for years and requires an honest understanding before you can figure out what to do about it. For a full explanation of public record on credit report, I wrote a dedicated post on that.
When someone asks me if a tradeline will help their credit, one of my first questions is whether they have any public records on their report. It changes the picture significantly. Public records are the heaviest derogatory marks in the scoring model — they’re not like a late payment, which fades in a couple of years. The main one that still shows up, bankruptcy, can sit on your report for a decade.
Continue reading “What Is a Public Record on a Credit Report?”
Buyers come to me after Chapter 13 discharge more than you might expect. They’ve just finished a multi-year repayment plan, their credit took a real beating, and they want to know two things: where does my score stand right now, and will a tradeline help? The honest answer to both questions is more nuanced than what most posts on this topic give you.
Continue reading “Average Credit Score After Chapter 13 Discharge”
Fraud in personal finance usually makes you think of someone stealing your identity — a stranger opening a credit card in your name, draining your account, the whole nightmare scenario. That’s third-party fraud. First-party fraud is different, and in some ways more interesting: it’s when the borrower IS the fraud.
Continue reading “What Is First Party Fraud? How It Works and Who Does It”