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[Anonymous]

Hello! I am a 23-year-old who is trying to improve my credit score. I have gotten into a little trouble of being behind on bills because my job was not paying enough and when i was finally able to pay my credit card bills it was already too late. One got sent to a collector’s agency and the other one they just closed my account. Right now, I have a credit score of 623 (which is poor) and I only have two lines of credit open (one is a joint card and the other is a Victoria secret card). I also recently tried to help my boyfriend buy a car, so I have 11 hard inquires on my credit report. All the credit cards are paid off and the accounts have been closed. Please help me figure out how to improve my credit score. I would like to buy a house by the time I am 25 or 26 but I can't do that with poor credit. 

Thank you for any advice you may have! 

[Anonymous]

Contact the collection agency and ask for a Pay For Delete. They may or may not agree to remove it off of your credit report in exchange for payment. Since you are looking to buy a house in 3 years, inquiries stop having an affect on your credit score after 1 year and fall off in 2 years. You can however send a letter to the creditor who pulled your credit and ask them to convert the hard pull to a soft pull. May I ask why you paid off the credit cards and closed them? You're going to need a couple of credit cards to build credit. I would suggest a couple of secured cards. Open sky has one that does not check credit and reports monthly to all 3 credit bureaus. Discover, BoA, Cap One, and citi all have secured cards that graduate with responsible use after about a year, maybe longer. I would also recommend a credit builder loan through a CU or through self lender. Having a few open revolving accounts and an installment account on your report will help your score a lot with time as long as you keep credit utilization down and make on time payments. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello! I am a 23-year-old who is trying to improve my credit score. I have gotten into a little trouble of being behind on bills because my job was not paying enough and when i was finally able to pay my credit card bills it was already too late. One got sent to a collector’s agency and the other one they just closed my account. Right now, I have a credit score of 623 (which is poor) and I only have two lines of credit open (one is a joint card and the other is a Victoria secret card). I also recently tried to help my boyfriend buy a car, so I have 11 hard inquires on my credit report. All the credit cards are paid off and the accounts have been closed. Please help me figure out how to improve my credit score. I would like to buy a house by the time I am 25 or 26 but I can't do that with poor credit. 

Thank you for any advice you may have! 

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Hi Nelly.

Welcome to the forums.  I'm a little concerned about your goal of trying to buy a house in a couple of years when right now you are having trouble paying your CCs.  You need to establish good payment history going forward.  Are those 11 INQs on just one report or on multiple reports?  If you haven't done so, you need to find out what your 3 FICO scores are.  You can get a $1 trial membership with CCT that is for 7 days and as long as you cancel before the 7th day you won't be charged.  Owning a house is a wonderful goal, but unless some things change, your current income won't allow that to happen even if you clean up your reports. 

[Anonymous]

The good news is you've given yourself years to get everything in order. Like the comments above state, obtaining your 3 FICO scores and reports would help you a great deal. From these you'll have a better understanding of what is impacting your scores. With the extra bit of information, the members of this forum will be able to assist you better and give you proper advice moving forward.

[RobertEG]

Please list each of your payment history derogs by type, age (month/year if a monthly delinquency, or DOFD if a collection or charge-off), and current status of paid or still delinquent.