Improving my score

[rajbansjoshi]

I started with a 620 score on Equifax in May, 2010. A year back I had four 30 day missed payments ( two in my Capital One card, in Mar' 10 and June ' 10 and two in my Macy's Store card, in Mar' 10 and June' 10). At that time, following was my credit standing..

BOFA - 1500 $

CapOne - 1500 $

Macy's - 200 $.

After that mistake of mine, which I committed due to being out of country; I have worked hard in trying to adhere to all the good practices for CC Debt management. Currently, my accounts are as follows :-

BOFA - 5000$

CapOne - 1500 $

Macy's - 200 $

AMEX Zync - No Limit

I also got approved for a Chase Freedom card a couple of days back. and I try to keep my balances within 10 %. Currently, my scores are TU :- 722, EQ - 702, EX - 710 ( From AMEX) and have been hovering around the same numbers in the past 3-4 months...

Can someone advise, as to what other steps can I take to go to the next level ( Upper 700 FICO Score)

[GregB]

As the late payments age, your score will go up. You should see some improvement as the late payments hit a year of age. I don't know if you have just seen that or are about to see that improvement.

As far as "Upper 700 FICO Score", I would think that would require the lates to become quite old and could require them to age off completely when they hit 7-7.5 years old.

It should be fairly easy to get 20 point to move your EQ FICO of 702 up to the median. Getting another 20 to take you near 750 will be much more difficult.

[rajbansjoshi]

Thanks Greg for your comments..  Regarding the  improvement, I started seeing improvements since March- April period when my score jumped around 40-50 points to 710...

[kjm79]

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@rajbansjoshi wrote:

I try to keep my balances within 10 %.  

Can someone advise, as to what other steps can I take to go to the next level ( Upper 700 FICO Score)

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Hi Raj.

As already said, letting the lates age will help.  You could try to send GW letters asking for removal of the lates, but Cap1 is pretty tough. 

When you say 10% balance, is that what is being reported each month?  And is that on one card or spread between your cards?  To get the best possible score, you want to have a small balance report on only one card, and usually that balance should be less than 9%.

Also, I don't see an installment loan listed on your post.  If you don't have one and it won't mess up your AAoA, opening a small personal loan could also help give you a boost in your scores. 

[GB44]

Hello Raj,

Just wanted to let you know that if your scores are coming from AMEX creditsecure, then the scores mentioned are FAKO. Your FICO score could be higher or lower.

[rajbansjoshi]

My TU and EQ scores are FICO Scores from MyFICO and only the Ex comes from AMEX which is FAKO.. regarding 10%, I make sure that the Credit to Limit ratio is 10% for each and every card that I have.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@rajbansjoshi wrote:

My TU and EQ scores are FICO Scores from MyFICO and only the Ex comes from AMEX which is FAKO.. regarding 10%, I make sure that the Credit to Limit ratio is 10% for each and every card that I have.

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For best scoring, you don't want to let all your cards report 10%, or anything else, for that matter. There is a scoring negative --not a huge one, but it's there --for "too many accounts with balances."

Use your cards as much or as little as you want (this keeps the lenders happy.) Then consider paying many of them off before their statement dates, so that they report $0. Do let one card report a balance, ideally 9% or less, and then pay it off before the due date. We call this "playing the util game", because it results in very low reported revolving utilization (only one card, with a small balance), which can be a powerful score driver.

You certainly don't have to do this if you don't want to, unless you're getting ready to go for something where you want to optimize your FICO scores, like a mortgage. If so, start doing this 6 weeks or so before your scores will be pulled, so that everything can update first.

But you also don't need to concentrate on allowing 10% to report on every card every month.

[rajbansjoshi]

Thats a great point and I am definitely trying to test this and see how it works.. I am going to let just one of my CC report balance... and let my other CC report 0 balances and see how it works... 

[haulingthescoreup]

In case you haven't come across this tidbit yet, HSBC and Orchard bank cards (as opposed to the HSBC Best Buy store card, for instance) report your balance as of the last business day of the month, although they don't actually submit the info to the bureaus for another week or so.

USBank cards also report your balance as of the last business day of the month, although they submit the info promptly.

Pretty much everyone else reports the balance that shows on your newest statement, submitting it that day or evening, although I'm sure that there are smaller local CU's and banks that march to their own drummers.

Generally Experian updates that night or the next morning, but TU and Equifax doodle around anywhere from 3 - 10 days before posting the new balance. Why they do this, I dunno.   The effect is that there's a built-in delay before your scores can change, because the new balances must be on the reports for the scores to react (or not react.)

Welcome to the score tweakers' club!