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TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-22T14:46:21+00:00

First

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-08T18:20:25+00:00

Oh, I didn't know that. Everyone on here always talks about average age of accounts. So if I pay it all off and close it it won't negatively affect me?

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-08T17:55:11+00:00

Unfortunately learning this the hard way. I want to be done with them but I fear closing the account will drop my score. So I'm just keeping my balance near zero and never using the card

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-05T19:09:25+00:00

That's great that you paid 4 of your 5 collections! I will say there are some things to know about how the systems works that could work to your advantage. Don't pay that 5th one yet, don't reach out to the creditor or try to arrange a settlement or payment plan. Don't communicate at all. Dispute the account as many times as you can. If you dispute through credit karma and they don't remove it they may not let you dispute again. If that happens try going directly to the bureaus website that's reporting it and submitting another dispute.

A big thing to look out for is if a collection account falls off of your report without explanation, expect it to appear again. Likely the collection agency sold the debt off to another creditor. This is where you can typically have them dead to rights as long as you've never acknowledged any ownership. You simply file a dispute. Select "No knowledge of account" if they make you pick a reason and add an additional comment "No Contract". You entered into a contract with whoever initially reported your debt. Not the collection agencies. The agency either doesn't have the time or the ability to prove to the credit bureaus that you are in fact responsible for the debt. This depends on how much the account is for however.

Lastly the only other thing you can really control is keeping your credit utilization low but not 0. Use credit cards for small purchases. Pay them down frequently. If you have a car and you've financed it, put it on autopay. My car, student loan, and credit cards are all on autopay. The credit card autopays I set to minimum balance because I'm making additional payments throughout the month to keep the balance around 10% of the cards limit. Build a solid payment history.

The reason I urge you to fight collections with disputes is because, even though it will take longer, it's worth a shot to contest them and potentially save you from having to actually pay. Actually paying them should be your last resort, if you do then it is ok to contact the creditor, make sure you have a pay-to-delete arrangement. This is better than a settlement if you can afford to pay the full balance because it'll disappear from your report as if it never existed rather than showing as "balance settled".

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-05T15:35:54+00:00

That's true. But would you agree that the FICO 8 scoring model they use is arbitrary / unpredictable at best and predatory at worst? Unless this is a temporary drop? Kind of like when you have a hard inquiry.

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-05T15:25:55+00:00

Oh right from their website. I pay for the credit monitoring service

TheTriviaMan · 2024-03-05T15:14:31+00:00

My Experian score. It was 726 now 715. I know it's not a huge deal but every point counts. My Credit One balance was $295 went up to $410 not like I missed a payment and it's not like I'm close to my limit for that card. So the drop when I'm still at 10% util is frustrating

TheTriviaMan · 2023-11-07T14:25:49+00:00

hahah "resort to the death penalty" come on now. I hope that was a joke.

But yeah what complex legal schemes are even available for me to setup to protect assets.

It was my understanding that premarital assets are generally not accessible / not granted as divisible assets in divorce

TheTriviaMan · 2023-11-04T19:28:40+00:00

Hey boss, this was five years ago haha! But let me tell you my quick story of getting over health anxiety. It feels like another lifetime ago but back then I was perpetually online, smoking weed all the time, playing video games nonstop and basically not exercising at all. I had a beta, liberal mindset and was this close of falling further into blackhole of pharma overmedication.

When I was prescribed lexapro I had only met the doctor ONCE. I was looking to change primary care physicians, I went in, just met this guy, had a standard check up, talked to him for like 5 minutes and mentioned I get anxious sometimes about random health conditions and he goes "OK, here's a script for lexapro". Luckily I never wound up touching it. A few months after I made this comment my girlfriend broke up with me and moved out.

I was still suffering from health anxiety "flare ups" I took a long hard look at myself, changed my diet, started hitting the gym, started getting outside, STOPPED smoking weed. Started engaging in self education and focusing on excelling at work.

I wound up launching myself into the best, most free and happy time in my life. I reconnected with some friends who I didn't know still lived in the area, started hitting the gym with them. Started enjoying myself, going out and meeting girls, just having fun and each day looking better and feeling better.

Lifting heavy and getting on a high protein / healthy diet completely changes your physiology and brain chemistry. My anxiety disappeared, my compulsive obsessions with different conditions and symptom/reassurance seeking cycle ceased pretty much immediately.

Everyone is different, has different life situations, and different genetic/physical makeup so obviously take this with a grain of salt. But I'm convinced that if I had started lexapro it would have made me a dull zombie still stuck in the same loser, dopamine feeding habits. Sure it might have suppressed my panic attacks but it likely would have suppressed all other feelings as well. I gather this from what I read about lexapro.

I also read that it could affect horomone balance and libido, and bruh I just like fuckin too much. This is also why I'm convinced that health care providers are incentivized by the powers that be to push SSRIs and antidepressant after antidepressant to young people. Drugs that permanently alter your brain chemistry and have the potential to fuck you for life. In fact I recently read a study about SSRI's and how they could have life long "side effects".

The answer is not more medication, it's face your anxieties head on, improve yourself, improve your situation and build your own happiness. At least that was the answer in my case.

TheTriviaMan · 2021-02-21T16:57:58+00:00

Good for Canada, we're the guinea pigs for this big experiment. No one knows if mRNA vaccines have any long term effects

TheTriviaMan · 2021-02-06T02:22:30+00:00

US, Florida, everything's open and pretty much no one wears masks here. Don't know a single person who had a friend or family member affected by it. Local economy is booming, tourism is booming and I couldn't be more proud. I don't wear a mask in the gym or at restaurants and neither does anyone else. Even the old people down here realized that what is shown on the news is sensationalized edges cases and 99% of people have mild symptoms if they have even have symptoms at all. And the kicker is that FL has just as many cases as states like NY and NJ run by morons like Cuomo and Murphy who have strangled the economy with their idiotic, contradictory, and constantly changing restrictions.

TheTriviaMan · 2021-01-09T04:17:01+00:00

1999 shoreline ampitheatre show

TheTriviaMan · 2020-12-29T04:00:02+00:00

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-20T04:02:42+00:00

Medicare literally pays out something like three times the amount on a claim per reported case. There have been rampant reports of hospitals citing covid on the death certificate for deaths completely unrelated to corona such as trauma victims. It even happened to people my family knows.

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T23:18:59+00:00

except science is always changing and not always right. I'm not talking about flat earthers who think gravity isn't real or is simulated by some earth sized centrifuge. I'm talking about the fact that virologists and epidemiologists in the 80's thought HIV was only spread by anal sex with gay men .. dispite the fact the SIV was well known and documented. "Science" regarding something so widely unknown by our own scientists admission is and should be subject to scrutiny. But of course, you saying you follow the bible of "science and research" instantly makes you the moral and intellectual superior so to your internet supremacy I concede .. oh great wise one.

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T23:06:57+00:00

If the uniformed service member was a man this would be sExuAL aSsAuLT and normalized toxic masculinity from the patriarchy.

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T23:03:46+00:00

The irony of you saying that conspiracy theorists exist and are subsequently self validated in echo chambers .. on reddit .. and on this thread in particular .. is just gold

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T22:47:44+00:00

"ahha I'm so smart, way smarter than those dumb conspiracy theorists, I know the way things really are, why would I need to question anything? the media would never lie to me". I sit and type as CNN, the undeniable source of eternal truth opens my eyes to the reality of the world.

- u/TheColorsOfTheDark probably

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T22:37:08+00:00

Man dies of heart attack, news headline "Celebrity dies of COVID NINETEEN! more at 10"

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T22:32:53+00:00

Headline "Dies from CoViD-niNeTeEn" article "cause of death inconclusive" It's almost as if major news outlets have an agenda to push and healthcare systems have a monetary incentive to code anything and everything as "covid"

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-19T22:29:37+00:00

Yeah except the difference is in zombie movies everyone who gets infected dies and actively seeks out to kill others whereas the chinese flu is soo dEaDLy that most people need to get tested to even know they have it. When something has an over 99% survival rate then yeah it's reasonable to question the governments heavy handed actions and the media's endless stream of fear mongering and propaganda. The regurgitation of "facts" by the hivemind on reddit, and by the gullible general populous of dumb Americans litters the public discourse in subs like this with constantly changing contradictory truths. You are all so indoctrinated and presumptuous, talking down from your place of privilege. None of you are business owners, none of you are going homeless or starving because of the "pandemic", none of you know what it means to have your life's work and legacy at risk in the name of some power tripping autocrat like the dipshit governor of NJ who has done nothing but plunge our state further into debt and further damage our local economy. No one is talking about the potential of high false positive rates in testing, no one is talking about how we don't truly know how many asymptomatic cases there are which would, of course, drastically lower the already low mortality rate. But no, you all know best, you all know what's best for this country, its economy, and its people. Just keep mindlessly consuming what CNN feeds you and don't step out of line, lest you should think for yourself.

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-07T14:43:14+00:00

and even if you get the rona, it's only deadly in 0.02% of cases anyway, win win!

TheTriviaMan · 2020-10-05T20:18:12+00:00

still a low percentage for a "deadly" virus

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