Increasing credit score - Piggybacking and Equifax different than FICO

[BuffaloBoy]

It's weird. My equifax score is 630. My fico score on this website is 598? Seems kinda odd? Anyway, I want to raise my score up. I've read about piggybacking. My wife has a very good credit history. Has never been late on a payment ever. She has a few accounts, but im curious which one you guys would piggy back on (or multiple?)

Lowes Credit Card $3,500 limit $75 balance. Opened in 2010 Never late

Macy's Credit Card $2500 limit $333 balance. Opened in 2009 Never late

Kohls Credit Card $700 available credit $0 balance. Opened in 2009 Never late

Thanks for any help you can give!

[llecs]

Equifax.com pushes a FAKO. MyFICO is a FICO.

Which CCs? It depends on a few factors. How many CCs (opened and closed) are reporting now? How many of those are open? What is your current util on your revolving accts? What is your AAoA?

[BuffaloBoy]

I understand FICO vs FAKO. But the funny thing is that FAKO has the more accurate account history than FICO does. 

Average age of accounts: 4 years (almost 7 years being the longest)

3 Credit Cards reporting - none open

Account with Kay Jewelers is open ($4,000 limit. $1,300 balance)

[BuffaloBoy]

So would having her  add me to the Lowes card be of help to me? Or Lowes plus another one?

[llecs]

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@BuffaloBoy wrote:

Average age of accounts: 4 years (almost 7 years being the longest)

3 Credit Cards reporting - none open

Account with Kay Jewelers is open ($4,000 limit. $1,300 balance)

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Adding any of the three won't help your AAoA. It might hurt AAoA but it depends on the specific open date. Even if AAoA drops by a year, it could rebound inside a few months.

Any of the three would help util.

Mix won't improve.

I'd probably start with the Kohls if I had to add one. If I had that, I probably wouldn't add any. Util is always temporary. It's easy to pay off a CC. And util is the only thing positively impacted by all of this.

[BuffaloBoy]

Doesn't Lowes help Util as well?

[llecs]

All 3 would help util. IMO, unless you are pressed up to the point where you are applying for a mortgage or something like that, I would mentally exclude util as a reason. They reason I would exclude util as a reason is because balances go up and down all the time as you use the cards and pay them off. Util on those cards won't be the same 6 months from now (or shouldn't be).

[BuffaloBoy]

Gotcha. So for right now just go down the secured loan route and try to re-build?

[llecs]

I wouldn't do the loan either because it's only a small part of FICO scoring. You can certainly hit 800 without one.

Is there anything holding your FICO score back?

[RobertEG]

In my opinion, if there is any question as to whether the FICO impact of being added as an AU will help scoring, or the impact is small, I would not do it.

With the account history of another contributing to your scoring, that prevents any creditor desiring to see your "real" score that takes only your own history into account from doing so.  If a higher principal app for credit, they may do a more detailed review, and thus your entire score could become questionable in their eyes.