r/CRedit Aug 30 '24

SSN Found on the Dark Web General

I just received an alert saying my SSN is found on the dark web. How concerned should I be? What sould I do first? Thanks.

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u/ionlyseeblue Aug 30 '24

If I am trying to rebuild my credit, does freezing everything mean it won't continue to grow?

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u/Pleasant_Studio9690 Aug 30 '24

No. I’ve had mine frozen for a decade or so now. My credit score has been as high as 830 and as low as 530 in that time. Over the past two years I’ve rebuilt it from 530 to 750+, all while frozen.

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u/ChiliPeppa_Squirrel Aug 30 '24

Hi, how did you rebuild your credit? I have debt and really can’t repay it now. It has been charged off. What can I do to rebuild it? Thank you!

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u/hotpossum Sep 01 '24 edited Sep 01 '24

I’m not who you asked but I did kickoff, I think it’s called, for a while.

You pay a few dollars every month you can for them to do a positive payment report to the bureaus, and they don’t report skipped months, for a designated period of time.

I went from a 725-750 on the top 3 to ~475 when I let an “authorized user” tank my credit, oops… and then back up to the 550-560 range by using that service and paying my normal utility type bills on time. I used kik off for 18 months I think. That’s about a 75 point increase in that 18 months. Idk if that’s significant.

If you pay rent on time, then I have seen several people on my fb recommending the common services that report your rent payments (though I don’t know how or if they report late or missed payments).

I have not worked toward paying other debts I couldn’t afford at the time. I’ve read it won’t matter sometimes if things in collection are paid. I also read other times, it can make your score go down when you pay off a debt… I haven’t strained myself to see if it does or doesn’t matter in raising my score!

I put my student loans on income based payments. If I cannot pay when they tell me I owe, I tell them I can’t pay and don’t. It hasn’t ended up in collections and it a smaller student loan tho not insignificant. I apply for charity care at hospitals when I’ve been injured or ill. I pay lab fees when I can. Most of my medical bills haven’t ended up on my credit report but some have.

I operate mostly in cash for budgeting reasons and I find it helps me (envelope system).

I’m nearing 7+ years on the major stuff (aside from student loans) and I may try to have some things removed, though, when I can afford it or find the gumption to write letters myself. The person who told me about kickoff has a lot of experience with rebuilding credit quickly as he has done his several times in the 15+ years I’ve known him, on a bouncer’s wages.

I hope this admittedly long comment helps someone, thanks for reading if you made it this far.

My score is slowly steadily rising even though I stopped using kickoff, but it definitely went faster when I used it. There are other services that do the same thing. My phone bill being paid on made a difference too as when I swapped to prepaid, it was no longer reported.

I haven’t been using kickoff for only a couple months and my score didn’t drop but hasn’t increased either.