Has anyone really ever "achieved" a 300?

[SomeGuyOnTheWeb]

Has there been an actual documented case of someone bottoming out at a 300 or is it something that no one really ever hits? I would think that it's impossible, solely because there will reach a point where you can't accrue any more debt as no one will lend to you, thus creating an artificial floor which you can't dip under.

[Stralem]

One day, when I become a billionaire, I'm going to try my damndest to get the lowest credit score possible just to amuse myself.

Because **bleep** the world, I do what I want.

[nmac]

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@SomeGuyOnTheWeb wrote:

Has there been an actual documented case of someone bottoming out at a 300 or is it something that no one really ever hits? I would think that it's impossible, solely because there will reach a point where you can't accrue any more debt as no one will lend to you, thus creating an artificial floor which you can't dip under.

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I think you actually have to be in the process of committing a bank robbery to have a score of 300. I'll take my bad joke and leave now. 

[Carrie_in_Pa]

I've seen low scores but nothing below 400 ever. It took a lot of disconnected utilities and charged off accounts to do that. Almost forgot, there was an unpaid loan too.

No it wasn't me.

Edited when i realized my score was below 400 once, that was an identity theft issue i dealt with many moons ago.

[Kenny]

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@Carrie_in_Pa wrote:

I've seen low scores but nothing below 400 ever. It took a lot of disconnected utilities and charged off accounts to do that. Almost forgot, there was an unpaid loan too.

No it wasn't me.

Edited when i realized my score was below 400 once, that was an identity theft issue i dealt with many moons ago.

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Wow, nice to know!

[Carrie_in_Pa]

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@KennyRS wrote:

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@Carrie_in_Pa wrote:

I've seen low scores but nothing below 400 ever. It took a lot of disconnected utilities and charged off accounts to do that. Almost forgot, there was an unpaid loan too.

No it wasn't me.

Edited when i realized my score was below 400 once, that was an identity theft issue i dealt with many moons ago.

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Wow, nice to know!

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There was collections for water, electric, gas, phone, tv, internet and even stuff from a rent to own place. All while i was homeless, so i didn't have any utilities or a need to rent furniture. I'm surprised i was able to get it all taken care of.

[JoshNurse]

Somewhere around 520 is the lowest I ever say. My friend had about 5 depertment store cards maxed out and never paid for them.

I havent spoken to him in over 8 years but by now those defaulted store cards are probably out of his credit report which makes me mad.

People that max out cards,  pay nothing and wait 7 years to get it out of the report.  I hope he got sued but  highly doubt it.

[jamie123]

Lowest I was ever at was 350 and I'm not sure which CRA that was from.

This happened about 18 years ago and is the reason I'm on these forums now. Now remember, 18 years ago the Internet was in it's infancy and any kind of credit information or scores were hard to come by.

I was in my late thirties, owned a successful small business with 12 employees and was a high earner with about a 100K income at the time. I had 4 credit cards that were at least 15 years old and my oldest Sears credit card was actually 19 years old at the time. My scores were in the low 800's the last time I actually saw a score and this had just recently happened when I bought 1 house and 1 condominium.

Yes, I had just gone through a so called friendly divorce with my wife. We had a huge house in the burbs and when she wanted a divorce we decided to sell the big house, buy a small house for her and my daughter and a condo for me. The small house and condo were in the same city and only about a half a mile apart from each other to make my daughter's life a bit easier. She would still be in the same city and would be close to her friends no matter which parent she was with. Well...That was the plan anyway.

Once we sold the house and moved into our new residences, splitting up all our belongings, we did a quicky six week divorce because we had everything all divided and a child custody plan in place.

The day after the divorce was final I found out the REAL reason we divorced. My wife had been having an affair with someone that I knew. I knew I was in trouble then, I just couldn't fathom at the time how bad it would get. The guy was a real low life a$$H### and I couldn't see how my ex-wife didn't see that. Well...I'll spare you all the gory details.

Five months after the divorce my wife filed to have it re-opened stating that I hid assets and wanted the courts to re-divide the assets. She went after everything I owned from my business to my season tickets at a MLB team. She wanted max child support, not our pre-determined and agreed upon amount. She demanded full custody of my daughter with me having only very limited and supervised visitation rights.

Then the letters started arriving...

She let her house go into foreclosure and my name was on the mortgage.

She filed for bankruptcy and my name was on some of her debts.

I started to get letters from credit card companies demanding payment for cards that I never had. I come to find that after our house mortgages closed but before the divorce happened she had opened 7 credit cards in my name, forging my signature and maxing the cards out right before we were divorced and then stopped making payments. By the time I received these letters from the credit card companies the accounts had been closed and they were demanding payment in full no payment plans available. The total I owed was $20,000. I was so pissed off at the credit card companies I paid off all my balances and did the most stupid thing (Besides marrying my ex-wife.) that I have ever done. I closed all my credit card accounts. I was getting very close to flat broke. All my savings and retirement funds were pretty much gone at this point.

My daughter joined music class and needed a clarinet. The school said that you could rent them from a local music store. I stopped by the music store to rent the clarinet and unbeknownst to me that they needed to run a credit check before renting the instruments out. 350! I had been working with a sales person but the owner actually came out because he wanted to see what a person with a 350 score looked like. I kid you not. I had to buy the clarinet.

So yes, you can get into the low 300s but you have to work at it! It only took me 6 months to go from the low 800s to 350!

I lived a cash only lifestyle until about 2 years ago when I decided to better my scores and found out just how important credit cards are needed to do that.

And yes, I have built a better life with a fantastic wife, a couple more kids and a few mortgages since then.

P.S. Yes, through the psychological testing that is required nowadays in child custody cases I found out that my ex-wife was in fact a psychopath. Really! I won full custody of my daughter. My ex-wife paid me $50 a month child support.

[EW800]

Jamie -- I am so pleased to hear that things turned around. Thanks for sharing what you went through. Quite frankly, I had to chuckle when I read the bit about the store owner came out because he had to see what a 350 looked like!

[jamie123]

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@EW800 wrote:
Jamie -- I am so pleased to hear that things turned around. Thanks for sharing what you went through. Quite frankly, I had to chuckle when I read the bit about the store owner came out because he had to see what a 350 looked like!

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Yeah, I can laugh about it now too but it was probably the most embarrassing and traumatising thing that ever happened to me. I was broke for a long time even though I was making good money. The child custody case cost me $50,000.00 in attorney's fees.

It was around that time that I vowed to never let a lender have the upper hand in my life again. It was clarifying. I was chasing money and not living life to it's fullest. I have since learned to slow down and smell the roses occasionally. I don't need new and shiny nearly as much as I did back then.

And it just goes to show you that sometimes bad things can happen to good people. Sure there are people out there that deserve their 350s but there are others that get their 350s by no fault of their own or have extenuating circumstances. I try not to judge too much anymore.