How to Rebuild after BK and Go from Secured CC's to an Unsecured?

Question

In 2011 I filed a Chapter 13 BK (I'll spare the sob story since I don't want to get depressed). A year later - after making prompt payments to the trustee, I was furloughed from work due to the economic downtown and no longer met the min income qualifications for the BK payment plan; therefore the bankruptcy was dismissed.I can't even start to explain how bad this sitution turned out for me. I was told that if I wanted to keep my home I couldn't file a Ch7 BK, and didn't seem to get anywhere with the legal help I needed. At one point I found an Attorney that promised to help straighten everything out.. charged me $500 and never saw him again - he did nothing for me  but don't worry I was able to get the money back. I read articles, forums, books etc.. to educate myself on what to do. But all in all the creditors didn't want to work with me and I felt so LOST :/Finally, everything paid off when I found a decent Attorney to help me file a Ch.7 BK and it was done in 2014 and discharged with no issues.  But with this, I've been hit twice on my credit report and made it almost impossible to rebuild credit I have 3 secured credit cards (Merrick, Opensky, and a Credit Union). I also was just able to refinance my 19% auto loan to a 5% loan - which I'm extremely thankful for.  The issue now is that no one is willing to give me an unsecured credit card - not even CapOne - who most claim are the best at this.  How do I go from having secured cc's to qualifying to an unsecured? my cards don't seem to graduate to unsecured and although I've grown addicted to checking my scores and reports I can't seem to find a way - I tend to grow impatient, and I spend way too much time on all these credit forums (credit.com,CK,creditboards, etc) its seriously becoming insane.  My scores aren't really that bad (I think) but I think its the 2 public notices on my report that I believe are hurting me the most - any feedback on that? Scores are; EX 669, TU 662, EQ 675 I also hired a company who is helping me with my credit repair because I found myself going crazy mailing letters and paying certified mail costs and getting nowhere with the CB's.So where do i go next?? Thanks everyone

Answer 1

First off - dump the credit repair company. They simply CANNOT do the things that you can do, despite the promises they make. How old are your secured cards? Have you maintained perfect payment history forward from the discharge? Do you have current credit reports and is everything reporting as IIB with balances zeroed out?