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I just received the OpenSky secured card. I paid a $200 deposit of which they deducted $29 for my annual "membership fee." My credit monitoring hasn't picked up the card as a new line of credit yet. I contacted them to find out when they report and it is on the last day of each month. (Tomorrow.)
What I am wondering is should I pay the $29 to them today and have the card show up as a $0 balance? Or do I let it show up with utilization first? I am trying to maximize th amount of points my score will increase from having this new line of credit.
Do you have any other tradelines?
If 1, report a balance. If >1 the simple (if you don't mind micromanaging) advice is to only let card report, and <10% of the credit limit is suggested as well commonly.
Balances change with time naturally, so whether it's ideal now doesn't really matter, it should be ideal when you need to make a major application vis a vis mortgage or perhaps auto loan. When you're first establishing positive credit, the most important thing is to get a few tradelines, and then make all the payments successfully and on time.
I have 1 installment loan that just reported as "closed/paid" that is over 3 years old. But does this still count as a trad line if it is not an open one?
I know that timely payments matter in the long run, but I'm monitoring my credit and want to see it increase asap.
Recently went up 47 points on EXP from having the installment paid down to $0 and closed. But I have late payments on the account.
@jbishop1001 wrote:I have 1 installment loan that just reported as "closed/paid" that is over 3 years old. But does this still count as a trad line if it is not an open one?
I know that timely payments matter in the long run, but I'm monitoring my credit and want to see it increase asap.
Recently went up 47 points on EXP from having the installment paid down to $0 and closed. But I have late payments on the account.
Ah what score are you looking at? . Generally paying off an installment loan is a very slight negative for most people under every FICO model unless they have 2+ other installment tradelines reporting. I've never heard of anyone gaining double-digit points for that, but with the plethora of scores available (not all from FICO) it may be calculating things differently.
Yes it does still count as a tradeline though for the big portion of the mix of credit function as we understand it, there's just some minor at the margins points you might lose out on by not having an open one: not a major concern.
It was my experian. It's a fako, obviously. But started at 549 and is now at 596. Another factor may be that a late payment caused my score to drop previously from 572 to that pathetic 549. So the account is no longer delinquent and it has been paid in full.
Can't wait until my secured card reports for the first time tomorrow to see how much more my score will increase. I'll be kind of disappointed if nothing happens.
Oh sorry. It's from freecreditscore.com. creditscore.com also gave the 549 but hasn't updated yet
If the installment remains closed - do the late payments get considered when applying for a new credit card?
@jbishop1001 wrote:If the installment remains closed - do the late payments get considered when applying for a new credit card?
Yes, unless you can get them goodwilled off or the tradeline deleted.
@jbishop1001 wrote:Oh sorry. It's from freecreditscore.com. creditscore.com also gave the 549 but hasn't updated yet
Neither of those are an actual FICO score, education scores often don't reflect the reality of the algorithms used in lending decisions unfortunately.
I understand that but it's the closest thing I can get. Transunion doesn't have the right address and tells me I have a "thin file" so I can't even check them online.
I applied for a Cap 1 card a few months back and they sent me a letter with my score - 562. My monitoring sites both said 569 so it's close enough for me to guesstimate.
I can say that Score Sense is GARBAGE. They said my Equifax was something like a 520.