MonocleCollector

You have to dispute the account with the bureau that has it listed. In this case, it's TransUnion. You can dispute online here: http://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/credit-disputes/credit-disputes.page   It will probably also be worth it to you to check your credit report from each of the 3 bureaus to make sure there's nothing else on there that you don't agree with. You can get one report from each bureau for free once per year at annualcreditreport.com

The whole credit world is nebulous to most people. Even if you know the difference between credit reporting agencies and credit scoring algorithms, and the difference between TransUnion scores, VantageScores, and FICO scores, there are still MULTIPLE different versions of FICO scores out there (it gets revised every year, and banks have to vet the new scores before using them, so some banks use the 2004 scoring algorithm, some the 2008, etc. Crazy.).

There are a number of factors that they look at. The credit score is a piece that indicates to them how likely you are to be willing to repay your mortgage, and how likely you are to stay on top of repayments. More than anything, the credit score influences the rate you will get (and influences it pretty dramatically). 1) They want you to earn enough money that you can pay them back. Your Gross Annual Pay minus your fixed expenses (car, alimony, child support, other debt) should be high enough that about 30% of this leftover amount will cover your mortgage payment, insurance, and taxes. 2) They want you to not have a ton of other debt. 3) They want to see that you have a stabile job.  Those are the real big factors. For an idea of how banks will price loans, check out this site: https://www.lendingclub.com/public/how-we-set-interest-rates.action . Banks don't do a whole lot of subjective thinking. It's mostly about the numbers. This makes sense, since they try hard not to discriminate, in order to avoid lawsuits. The less control that people at the bank have over the approval process, the better for them.   Good luck!

Go to the website set up by the credit agencies to allow you to pull one free report per year from each of the agencies: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp

If your account has been sent to collections, you can no longer pay the credit card company. They have in essence sold the amount of money that you owe them to someone else, because they think they can't get it back from you. If you have been contacted by a collection agency, send them a debt verification letter. Send it Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. More info here: http://www.creditinfocenter.com/forms/sampleletter9.shtml If the collector does in fact own the debt, you now owe them. If they offer to settle, then tell them that you want the offer in writing from them before you'll send them a full payoff. Do keep in mind that you owe money to whoever now owns the debt. 

If you have a job, or savings, the companies will likely not settle with you. Instead, they will sue you to get their money. You owe them the money. If you don't have a job or savings, then eventually they will settle with you. "Settling" is them saying that they know that they can't get all their money back, so they'll take what they can and cut their losses. They do not want to do this. If you default on the card, and it's sent to collections, it will be on your credit report for about 7 years, during which time you will not receive good interest rates on loans. If you expect to be buying a car or house in that time frame, this is a bad idea.  Sorry to hear that you've signed up for a pile of debt; it'll be a lot of work to pay it off.

Credit reports and scores reflect your ability to responsibly use credit. Since you did not use credit to purchase your home, it will never show up on your credit report. The fact that your AmEx card doesn't show up is strange. Is it a credit card or a prepaid card? If it's a credit card, it should be showing up. If it doesn't, and you've had the card for a few weeks or more, you should call American Express and see if they have your correct information, because they're almost certain to be reporting your credit information at the end of every billing cycle.

The only thing that you can do is get some form of credit and use it responsibly for a long period of time. You can't build credit in an instant. Credit cards are a good idea (if you don't abuse them). If you don't qualify for any, look into secured cards, like https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/banking_credit_cards_secured_credit_card . Basically you put a certain amount of money down (say $250) in a CD, which you get back at the end of two years. for the life of the card you have a $250 limit. If you make payments on time, your credit will improve. it will, however, take time.

You shouldn't have much trouble. Student loans are typically pretty easy to get, especially if you already have a decent credit score. Keep in mind that student loans do not discharge in bankruptcy, so banks are more likely to lend you money for school, since there's a lower risk of you not being able to pay them back. Do be careful though that you're spending the money on a program that will provide for a good return on your investment in the form of a much higher salary. Try to get as many federal loans as possible and as few private loans as possible. Federal loans tend to have better rates, and be easier to deal with overall. 

Gary gave you some pretty terrible advice. If your score is bad already, it can still get worse, and hence take longer for you to recover from the bad score. What is not clear from your post is what you mean by a "debt consolidation service." Debt consolidation just means that you're taking out a loan to pay off other debt. Most "Services" out there are scams which prey on those who don't know better.  If your credit score is already bad, then debt consolidation probably won't help either. You probably won't qualify for a loan with a lower interest rate. You should post information about whatever program you're considering and let someone do some digging for you.

  You're in a tricky situation. Either there have been a number of mistakes, or someone is committing fraud and pretending to be you to sign up for credit offers. Your first step should be to place a fraud alert on your file. You should do so with any one of the three credit reporting agencies. Here's the link to TransUnion: http://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/credit-disputes/fraud-alerts.page . If you place a fraud alert, then for the next 90 days, any creditor who wants to grant credit to someone presenting your information will have to call a telephone number (which you will need to provide for the fraud alert) before credit should be granted. This just makes it a bit tougher for someone to commit fraud. You can renew this alert when it expires, and I would recommend that you do so.  Your second step should be to pull all of your credit reports from http://www.annualcreditreport.com ; you get one for free from each of the three bureaus per year. Make note of all accounts that you say are not yours. The next step is a tedious one. You need to report all of the incorrect accounts for each of the three bureaus. Links below: Experian: http://www.experian.com/disputes/main.html TransUnion: http://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/credit-disputes/credit-disputes.page Equifax: http://www.equifax.com/answers/correct-credit-report-errors/en_cp Once disputed, the bureaus will investigate. They will make their own determination. Hopefully they side with you. The next step is to contact each of the institutions where credit has been opened in your name fraudulently. Speak to someone in their fraud department. NEVER admit to owing the debt if you do not owe the debt. Get information on what you need to send them to have the account disputed. Send them the information via certified mail, return receipt requested (CMRRR) from your local U.S. Post Office. It costs a few bucks, but it's worth it to have evidence that you sent things. Lastly, keep monitoring your credit with sites like Credit Karma and Credit Sesame. You need to be extra vigilant, since your information is out there. Here's the link to the FTC site on this subject: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/consumers/defend.html
Good luck.

You just haven't done your research on how credit scores are calculated. Also, while I agree that being debt-free is a good thing, that doesn't necessarily mean that having debt is a bad thing, if it is used properly. It allowed you to buy your house in the first place, didn't it? The reason these scores exist is to predict how likely you are to pay someone back. To a bank, you are nothing but a history of payments and non-payments. They don't know you. If they do know you and use that information to give or deny you a loan, they can probably be sued for discrimination. Credit scores allow them to evaluate borrowers in a mechanical way. Closing credit accounts, e.g. paying off a mortgage, is likely to lower your score. This is because scores try to estimate the likelihood of you paying off new debts, not debts from years passed.  CreditKarma does not calculate FICO scores, either. They calculate other scores. Just an FYI. Coming from someone who works in finance, who has seen debt do amazing things as well as terrible things (when people don't know what they're getting themselves into before signing a legal binding contract), you sound like you might not be the kind of person who can handle debt properly anyways, considering that you didn't really offer up any sort of an argument or question in your post. I'm not even really sure why I responded, except to say that I disagree with you.

Different scores weight different things differently. There are a few components here: 1) The "Credit" activities you do (credit card, loan, mortgage, etc.) get reported to credit reporting agencies (CRAs). 2) CRAs maintain files with your credit information in your credit report. 3) Someone (either you or a potential creditor) uses the data in the report. Typically this is done in the form of a credit score, which crunches all data on a credit report into a single number. Therefore, your "VantageScore" score based on your Transunion report can be different than your "VantageScore" based on your Equifax credit report. Likewise, your "VantageScore" on your Transunion report can be different than your TransRisk score based on your Transunion report. The scores all consider the same factors, but weight some factors as more important than others. That's why there are differences. Just focus on paying things on time and use the credit report card as a guide to what factors are driving your score.

Because Transunion has it in their files that you owe someone money. You need to contact them and ask them what it is; then dispute / ask them to investigate. Just google "Transunion Dispute"

You get off the list by formulating a real question, putting together the pertinent details, and asking again. Your "question" makes no sense.

It probably is affecting your score. If she doesn't pay her bills, it might reflect negatively on your score. The upside is that you can just call the credit card company to cancel your authorized user status.

Dispute with each credit reporting agency that still has it listed as open. Just google "Dispute Transunion/Equifax/Experian" and you'll find how to do it.

Credit cards always have high rates. I have excellent credit, and a no-frills no-reward card has an 8.9% interest rate. After a bankruptcy you can expect rates to be higher. My main rewards card, an Amex, has a 24% interest rate.  Keep in mind that the point of credit cards is not to borrow money. It is to make transactions easier, so you don't have to carry cash. If you do not have money in your account to buy something that same second, do not put it on your credit card. You don't accrue interest unless you carry a balance from month to month. Pay it off right after the statement close date each month, and you'll never have to worry about the interest rate.

Why would it? You're not using credit. No one is lending you money. There's nothing to report to credit bureaus. 

Data is pulled from Transunion. Transunion is constantly updated. The data on Credit Karma is updated whenever you click the button to get new data.

In my understanding, credit card lines without a fixed limit tend to report the all-time high balance as the "limit" of the card. If you really like the card, it may be worth it to eyeball the next couple of big expenses you have coming up, and lump them all onto your visa signature card (and pay them off that same month of course). That should give you some breathing room. Just remember not to pay it off until you get your statement, as that is typically when card issuers make their reports to the credit reporting agency.   Other than that, I don't know what you could do. 

No, your credit score will not drop. If you both get onto joint accounts, and are both contributing to the payment, and he stops paying, then your score will be affected because both of your reports will get the negative mark. In and of itself though, marrying someone with poor credit does not affect your credit.

You need to get some sort of credit. The best way to do this is to get a secured credit card. Basically you put down a deposit (around $250), which you get back at the end of a 2-year period, and in exchange get a $250 limit credit card that works like any other credit card. It will report to credit reporting agencies. If you pay on time, then your credit will slowly build. I like the secured card from USAA. The downside is that there's a $35-ish annual fee. The upside is that if you use the card responsibly they might convert it to a regular credit card after a year or two, getting rid of the annual fee and giving you back your deposit.

http://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/credit-disputes/fraud-alerts.page If by lock you mean fraud alert, then yes, alerting one agency requires that agency to alert others. It does not prevent you from pulling a credit report, rather, it requires lenders to perform additional verification before granting you (or someone pretending to be you) credit. Between that, monitoring your score at credit karma, and potentially also monitoring your credit score at credit sesame, you should be all set. If you become the victim of fraud (someone actually commits fraud) then you might be more interested in placing a credit freeze, which prevents creditors from granting credit until you personally contact the credit reporting bureaus and lift the credit freeze. More info: http://www.transunion.com/personal-credit/identity-theft-and-fraud/fraud-alert-vs-credit-freeze.page 

Probably. Depends on the loan rate. In all likelihood the HELOC rate will be lower than the credit card rate, since it's a secured loan. Do keep in mind though, that if you fail to pay on your HELOC, unlike if you fail to pay on your credit cards, that the company that gives you the HELOC can take your house away. If you're sure you can pay it off, save yourself some money on interest (there's also the tax deduction to think of with the HELOC, so a 7% rate on a HELOC would be more like a 7% * (1-taxrate) effective rate, probably like 5%.  If you're not sure if you can pay it off, the stakes are high.