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hey everyone,
I'm new here and thought i'd ask for some advice:
I'm a 20 year old college student and myFico reports my Transunion Score as 704 and Experian at 657. I bought a report from Equifax's website, and it says my scores are in the 620-640 range for all three credit bureaus. I'm not entirely sure which scores are accurate....... also, which ones do lenders look at?
I currently have a Sears Card, 3 store cards and a US Bank Credit Card. Sears i was approved for recently with a 1000 limit, US Bank gave me 400, and the Store Cards vary from 300-500. The Sears card is a mastercard and my main card, the other ones i use very sparingly. I'm usually very good about making payments, and have almost never made a late payment. However, what's hurting me is high credit utilization. I tend to spend a decent amount on a card(besides the sears card), and pay the balance off in full every month. My limits are low, so i exceed the ideal debt utilization percentage, but i have no trouble making the payments. I know NOW that this is not the right way to do things, and to keep the utilization of debt/credit low. I do not have any collections, but i do have student loans, and have already begun paying those off, even though I deferred payment until after i graduate.I owe about 19k to school, and will pay that off as soon as possible after graduation.
For Some time now, I have debated switching my bank from US bank to wells fargo. I opened a checking account at Wells, and tried to open a college card, but was denied, because of "past poor performance with a Wells Fargo Checking Account". This is from when I was 14, and terrible with money. I talked to their collections department, and paid the fee of 35.00 to pay off that old account in full. Collections told me that this account was clear and that I should not have trouble getting approved for a card.
A few days later, I tried to open a Secured card, knowing that my scores were a little low based on the Equifax report, and was denied for that secured card for the same reason of past poor perfomance. I'm wondering if this is a bank issue, or is my credit score playing a part in this denial as well? Depending on which report you look at, MyFico or Equifax's 3 credit bureau, i Could be approved using one set of scores and denied by the other. Which one are the lenders looking at, and is 620-640(if that's what it is) too low for a wells fargo secured Credit card?
My questions are: how can i get my score up and how fast will i see improvement?
My scores have been hovering around this 600-650 mark for the past 2 years now, and I would like to see them increase. I've been responsible with my credit, made my payments, yet I still have a low score thanks to probably my debt utilization and student loans.
Any information/resources provided would be a great help. I'm young and would like to start building good habits and credit now, so that later in life I am secure financially.
Thank you very much
@mjb59463 wrote:hey everyone,
I'm new here and thought i'd ask for some advice:
I'm a 20 year old college student and myFico reports my Transunion Score as 704 and Experian at 657. I bought a report from Equifax's website, and it says my scores are in the 620-640 range for all three credit bureaus. I'm not entirely sure which scores are accurate....... also, which ones do lenders look at?
I currently have a Sears Card, 3 store cards and a US Bank Credit Card. Sears i was approved for recently with a 1000 limit, US Bank gave me 400, and the Store Cards vary from 300-500. The Sears card is a mastercard and my main card, the other ones i use very sparingly. I'm usually very good about making payments, and have almost never made a late payment. However, what's hurting me is high credit utilization. I tend to spend a decent amount on a card(besides the sears card), and pay the balance off in full every month. My limits are low, so i exceed the ideal debt utilization percentage, but i have no trouble making the payments. I know NOW that this is not the right way to do things, and to keep the utilization of debt/credit low. I do not have any collections, but i do have student loans, and have already begun paying those off, even though I deferred payment until after i graduate.I owe about 19k to school, and will pay that off as soon as possible after graduation.
For Some time now, I have debated switching my bank from US bank to wells fargo. I opened a checking account at Wells, and tried to open a college card, but was denied, because of "past poor performance with a Wells Fargo Checking Account". This is from when I was 14, and terrible with money. I talked to their collections department, and paid the fee of 35.00 to pay off that old account in full. Collections told me that this account was clear and that I should not have trouble getting approved for a card.
A few days later, I tried to open a Secured card, knowing that my scores were a little low based on the Equifax report, and was denied for that secured card for the same reason of past poor perfomance. I'm wondering if this is a bank issue, or is my credit score playing a part in this denial as well? Depending on which report you look at, MyFico or Equifax's 3 credit bureau, i Could be approved using one set of scores and denied by the other. Which one are the lenders looking at, and is 620-640(if that's what it is) too low for a wells fargo secured Credit card?
My questions are: how can i get my score up and how fast will i see improvement?
My scores have been hovering around this 600-650 mark for the past 2 years now, and I would like to see them increase. I've been responsible with my credit, made my payments, yet I still have a low score thanks to probably my debt utilization and student loans.
Any information/resources provided would be a great help. I'm young and would like to start building good habits and credit now, so that later in life I am secure financially.
Thank you very much
i think you may have mistaken your EXPERIAN score on here. i think that what you say MYFICO gave you as your EXPERIAN score was actually your true EQUIFAX FICO. i say this bc you can no longer get your EXPERIAN FICO score here on myfico, as they discontinued doing that awhile ago so you might want to double check that
@mjb59463 wrote:I currently have a Sears Card, 3 store cards and a US Bank Credit Card. Sears i was approved for recently with a 1000 limit, US Bank gave me 400, and the Store Cards vary from 300-500. The Sears card is a mastercard and my main card, the other ones i use very sparingly. I'm usually very good about making payments, and have almost never made a late payment. However, what's hurting me is high credit utilization.
Your current Transunion FICO® is: 704
Your current Equifax FICO® is: 657
CORRECT?
You have a Sears Mastercard and a US Bank Visa card? And then, you have 3 store cards. CORRECT?
ALL your cards are maxed out or, close to it. CORRECT?
You asked what's the fastest way for you to get your FICO® score up -- this is simple. STOP applying for any more credit (secured or otherwise) and, PAY OFF everything you currently owe on your existing credit cards. You have enough credit cards to build with for now.
How many inquiries do you have on Transunion, Equifax and Experian?
If you will check your FICO® score on this website AFTER you get ALL your current credit cards paid off completely and report back what your Transunion and Equifax scores are at that time -- then, you will be ready to go forward on your credit journey.
Before you apply for credit, you always want to look your best and present yourself in the best light possible.
I wish you the very best!
what is causing the almost 40 pt difference between equifax and transunion? You stated " have almost never made a late payment " so do you have any lates reporting? if you keep applying for credit and opening new accounts your aaoa will keeping getting a hit and your scores will never rise
were you an au on the card or did you parents open the card in your name when you were 16?
@mjb59463 wrote:
I have one late reporting. The reason for this is because when I was 16, my parents added me as an authorized user on their chase BP card. I used it for gas, and paid them in cash when I could, and assumed everything was okay. This was back in 2009.
That chase bp shows up as a negative account that I owe money on, and myfico says that could be hurting my score. However, my dad says that this balance was paid in full to BP, and that the account is closed. There was never a collection on the account according to
My credit report and I know that the card hasn't been used in years by my parents either. Equifax lists the last usage on the account as September 2009. If payment was this late and it hasn't been paid for 3 years, shouldn't it have gone into collections by now? I can't imagine them waiting 3 years to do so.
I wrote BP and chase about two years back and they said they would remove it from my credit report, and that i didnt owe anything, but clearly that hasn't happened or just isnt true. I got pretty frustrated with chase bp and my parents for not letting me know what was going on, but that hasnt led to anything. How can I get this removed so I can get on with life? Do i need to handle it with chase BP or with the credit reporting agencies?
Dispute with the bureaus as "not mine" and it should drop....not sure why Chase is taking their sweet time removing you if you were indeed just an AU.