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I Didn’t Even Know My Credit Was Bad!

Naren Sharma 6 Stories

Tuesday March 14, 2017 , 4 min Read

I bought my first new car a few years back for a great deal. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made, besides marrying my wife of course! The loan I got was manageable, and I didn’t really have issues with the payments. This car has served me well over the years I’ve had it, and it will soon be carrying around my newborn baby girl.

That’s right, my wife and I are going to have a beautiful baby girl in just a few short months. We couldn’t be more excited! Our next step is buying a house to raise our child. But, this has proved to be a lot harder than we imagined. The minute we found out about our baby on the way, we started talking with realtors and going to open houses. Three houses really stood out to us, but we narrowed it down and picked the perfect one from the bunch. Then, it was off to the bank.

This is where things got bad. I applied for the loan, feeling confident. Unfortunately, I was outright rejected for the amount! It’s not like we were trying to borrow millions, we just needed the price of the house so we could buy it. I was told that I had a very low credit score, and that I wouldn’t be able to get the loan I needed.

But, how could I have a bad credit score? When I bought my car a few years back it was great! I even got an excellent loan and a very reasonable interest rate. How could it have dropped so fast over only a few years, especially since I didn’t have any bad history that I knew about?

Getting rejected for the loan made me more confused than anyone. Since we couldn’t get the money, the house we were trying to buy was sold to someone else who did get their loan. It really seemed gloomy and hopeless for us. Our baby was going to be born and we didn’t even have a place to call home and to raise her right.

Needless to say, I had to look for a solution as fast as possible. I went back and pleaded with the bank for some sort of option. They refused to help me, and told me not to come back again unless I improved my credit or got a co-signer. No one was willing to co-sign the loan for me. I asked so many different people that are close to me, but they either didn’t think their credit was good enough or they didn’t want to take that kind of risk. This was understandable, but it did make my life a lot harder.

My wife and I were feeling very stressed by all of this. Even though I had a good job and no significant financial issues, I was unable to get a loan to buy a home for us, and our baby girl was getting closer every day.

Next, I tried going to credit unions. Although I may have been able to get a loan through these places, they did require membership and a certain amount of time and investment before I was allowed to take a loan. This was just too long-term of a solution, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to work out for us in the end. It didn’t feel like the right solution to our problem.

After I was starting to fell as hopeless as possible, I just decided to do a quick web search and see what would turn up. Believe it or not, this was the move that started to turn my luck around. Right there on the search results was Credit Zipper, a company that deals with credit issues and helping you get back on your feet.

On their site, they have an article about how to bring up your credit score. I was reading through, looking for ideas, when I noticed a section talking about false reports being filed under your account. Suddenly, it clicked. Maybe this was why my score was so much lower now than it had been before!

I ordered a free copy of my credit report from all three of the major credit companies so I could compare the records. When I got the reports, I found a defaulted loan from someone else on my report! No wonder no bank would go anywhere near me for a loan! Within just a few weeks, I was able to dispute the records and have them removed from my credit history. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to get rid of the false reports completely.

My credit score is back where it should be now. And the best part? We close on our new house tomorrow.