Hi!
I was in your shoes about 1 year ago.

I had 4 or 5 old outstanding credit cards for a total of about $25,000 in debt. It had been 4-6 years since last activity on all of them. One (Merchants) had even rolled by last activity date to keep me on the report longer.

Anyway... there was a house that I wanted to buy and I hadn't used credit for years. All these credit cards were on my report (I got the free one) and my score was like 678.

I used the form letters (asking for debt verification) that can be found here and sent one to each of the collection agencies on my report. I sent them registered mail and got delivery confirmation on all.

I went to the bank a month later and applied for a home loan. The collection items still showed up on my report but I showed the lender copies of the letters I had sent and told him I was disputing the items. Seemed good enough for the bank. I got a 30 year@7% with payments at about 25% of my monthly income. That was a year ago. I've made on time double payments every month since and I checked my free report today and there are no negatives or collections on it.

3 of the 4 outstanding debts say paid off/never late and the other says closed/sold. I didn't pay the extra $7.95 to get my actual score but I gotta figure it's gone way up.

Thanks to this web site!!!!!

I really felt like there was nothing I could do about my debt problems before I came here. All I did was write a couple letters and demonstrate that I can and will pay in full and on time for a while and things are looking up.

As a side note:
I'm never using a credit card again. If I can't save up and buy something then I don't need it. Except for a house of course... lol.
Collection activity slowed or stopped almost immediately