General Credit Topics

[bert57]

This is involved.

I filed Bankruptcy in 2004. Got discharged 2 months after. Began to build credit up for next 2 years. It was 642 in Jan of 2006. But still had problems qualifiing for a refinance on home at a decent rate and term due to bankruptcy . Was told to wait 3 years by Wachovia and get my score to 700 and I would have no problems with excellent terms.

So I get my CR and find a bunch of CC not showing bankruptcy discharge and still oweing large balances. I dispute these and clear them to 0 balances showing resolved. Also found CR showing Bankruptcy not being discharge and corrected this also with date of discharge now showing on CR. I'm still disputing 3 CC's showing charge off instead of discharge through bankruptcy. Thier claim is these accounts were charged off before the bankruptcy. My bankruptcy shows them included.

Now I'm trying to improve my Fico score. So not knowing this may hurt me I open up 2 new CC within a 3 month period. On one I only use 300 of 4000 dollars and pay on time. On the most recent 2 weeks ago I use thier low interest transfer when opened to what ever credit they approved for me to swap a higher interest card. Which they approved 2000 of 2300.

2 weeks ago here were my CC balances:

CC1 -1500 of 4000

CC2 - 300 of 4000

3 others with 0 balances.

I needed to use 2000 for materials of a job I had for business.

Afterwards. Here's what I had  on CC balances until yesterday. That's when I noticed my Fico score dropped 150 pts:

CC1 - 2000 of 2300

CC2 - 700 of 4000

CC3 - 1100 of 4000

CC4 - 570 of 700

3 others with 0 balances.

Yesterday after noticing my Fico score drop and doing a lot of reading here, I paid down

CC! - 680 of 2300

CC2 - 700 of 4000

CC3 - 800 of 5500 (they raised my limit to 5500)

CC4 - 0 of 700

3 others with 0 balances.

I think I out smarted myself. I thought if I used credit cards and paid them off before the statement came out I would increase my score. Along with opening new CC and paying them down quickly. I was hoping although I had a 150 pt drop I can get those pts right back by paying the balances within 35% of availible credit for each card.

Complicated I know. But what do you think? How long would this take to get back to 650? I wanted to refinance home in july with a 680-700  by then. Looks like I'm screwed.

Hope this makes sense.

[Brammy]

That's a tough one.  I really can't predict with so much going on but please repost to this thread so we can see how it turned out once those new balances report. 

[bert57]

I'll let you know what happens. Just another little detail. I have 2 CC which show my credit score. Wamu yesterday showed my previous 650 score today shows 617. Where Juniper CC which I just opene 2 weeks back and transfered 2000 balance at lower interest is the score showing 506, also when up today to 534. Juniper score is called a Trans risk score. Is this the same as a Fico score? It seems both are using Transunion. Very confusion stuff. Before having any idea how credit scores worked my score seemed to hovering around 650 for the last year. Now that I thought I had learned some things. I have seemed to out smarted myself. All this comes at a time when I wanted to refi and take equity out of my home for 2 reasons. One to lesson and consolidate 1st and 2nd loan. Two to use equity to buy investment properties I recently been checking into. Looks like I'll have to wait while longer.

I have one question is the information on keeping credit balances under 35% the way to go to help bring down Fico scores?

[masdeocho]

You are correct that keeping your utilization ratio under 35% is the way to go.  Your ratios on these accounts are 29%, 17.5% and 14.5% which is great.  The problem is that you don't know what day your creditor reports your balance info to the credit bureaus.  If your due date is the 22nd, you pay on the 20th but your credit card issuer reports on the 19th, then it doesn't matter whether you pay your bill in full or pay down a certain amount. So you need to call each creditor and find out when they report your balance to the credit reporting agencies.  Then make sure your balance is low by that date.  Make sense?

[bert57]

Thanks masdeocho. So if the CC co. has reported these balances prior to my payments and my score has partially drop due to the higher balances, will my score get back to at least where it was next month. Or will it be a slower process to get it back up again?

[bert57]

One more thing I'm curious about. Initially I disputed my CR's with all three agency's to improve my report of course. I'm now wondering if I should have left my report alone and not disputed any wrong info. I'm not sure but I was wondering if my Bankruptcy not showing a discharge date was actually helping me. Or if any of the other CC co.'s  not having total up to date reports on me help also.

[Noah_Bodie]

bert57,

If the accounts were charged off before you filed for BK, then they can report them in charge off status. Balances must however show $0.

You are correct about util. Keep 'em all under 50%, under 35% is better particularly for a refi.

Date of your statement and the date they report to the bureaus might not be the same. Your statement might be on the 12th, payment due on the 23rd, but they might not report until the 3rd.

Looks like your current util is all under 30% (680 of 2300). $280 on CC1 would bring it's util down to 17.5%, same as CC2.

Alternatively, a $225 BT from CC1 to CC3 would keep them all under 20% util.

Message Edited by Noah_Bodie on 04-18-2007 05:31 PM

[Brammy]

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bert57 wrote:

I'll let you know what happens. Just another little detail. I have 2 CC which show my credit score. Wamu yesterday showed my previous 650 score today shows 617. Where Juniper CC which I just opene 2 weeks back and transfered 2000 balance at lower interest is the score showing 506, also when up today to 534. Juniper score is called a Trans risk score. Is this the same as a Fico score? It seems both are using Transunion. Very confusion stuff. Before having any idea how credit scores worked my score seemed to hovering around 650 for the last year. Now that I thought I had learned some things. I have seemed to out smarted myself. All this comes at a time when I wanted to refi and take equity out of my home for 2 reasons. One to lesson and consolidate 1st and 2nd loan. Two to use equity to buy investment properties I recently been checking into. Looks like I'll have to wait while longer.

I have one question is the information on keeping credit balances under 35% the way to go to help bring down Fico scores?

---

Try to keep them under 30%.  BTW that score you see on Juniper is not actually a FICO score.  Its actually some sort of skewed Transrisk score that only considers bankcard info (and that's majors) for good points but considers everything for bad.  My score is 611 whereas my real FICO is closer to 700. 

The higher the score the less the likelihood of you declaring bankruptcy or so it goes.  That 611 seems to put me on the high end of good.  go figure

[rosychild]

I'll give you a for-instance so you can see just what happens with all these cc reporting agencies-we are stuck with!----- I received a notification that my employer's laptops were STOLEN-and that we should  IMMEDIATELY CLOSE all our accounts and open new ones. Well, I did, as my identity was compromised--THAT ACTION-caused my credit score to PLUNGE 116 points!!!!!!!! The WHOLE idea of having my credit information reported every month sickens me-

 I am working on fixing this problem-however--the credit bureaus are not reliable-even tho they claim to be!!!!! This has been a problem since Jan 07, and here it is-APRIL-and nothing has been done yet-to clearify this matter-so, don't be dissapointed if your stuff isn't reported soon-it's a LONG haul---