Credit Advice

keep your future payments on time and the creditors will over look past late payment just show a little more consistency with being on time.

If I were you I would be contacting the Consumer Credit Counseling Service in your area. NOW!! If you are having difficulties they can get you fixed up and it doesn't usually cost you anything. Beware, there are some fly by night places that can really mess up your credit so you want someone reputable. Also if you are late are you within the grace period or are you over 30 days late. If it over 30 days late I would get dealing with the problem now before it gets worse and you loose your home.

You have 2 choices. You can wait for the 7 years to be up in which the negative parts will start to drop off or you can write to their executive offices what is called a goodwill letter asking very politely if they can remove the late payments. Tell them what happened and why it is doing a ton of damage to you.

I disagree. CCCS is a good thing. They can automatically lower your interest rates and stop over the limit fees and late fees. It is a better alternative to delclaring bankrupcy. You should only consider this if you don't make enough money to pay your minimum payments on time and you have no other alternatives. You can negotiate with each creditor individually to decrease your interest rates or settle on a reduced payoff (due immediately), but CCCS can usually get lower interest rates that the individual consumer can negotiate. Call them with your balances and interest rates and before you hang up the phone they will have a proposed consolidation plan for you that you can accept or not. It's worth just knowing that the option exists.