What am I doing wrong?

[Anonymous]

Hello. I'm new to myFico and I'm here because I'm wondering why my credit score never seems to change.

I am in my late 40s and I never had a need for credit before about 4 years ago. I started with a low-balance credit card and since then, I have built up to having a few store cards and a couple of fairly low balance credit cards. I have doubled my income in the last 4 years and pay all my bills on time.

There is ONE instance of a store card balance that was very delinquent, which was a comedy of errors, but I did pay it off once it was brought to my attention. It was about 3yrs ago now.

Other than that, I really do pay everything on time. Credit cards, store cards, and my regular bills as well. I can understand that it said it was due to the length of time of accounts a couple of years ago, but I'm going on a few years here with a couple of accounts and I'm still considered as having new credit?

My credit score is always stuck in the mid 640 range. I have tried paying all the cards off and I lost points when I did. I try to maintain low balances but pay on time, and it rarely bumps me up even a couple of points.

What do I have to do to get my credit score higher than that? Would getting a secured loan for a car or something help?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this!

[Anonymous]

First, welcome to the forum. So happy to have you posting here. 

When I first came to MyFico I couldn't understand why my scores were not higher since I was paying everything on time. After reading about closing dates and statement dates and how important those were for your score, I changed when I paid and when I charged. Right away I saw huge improvement in scores. Also, what is your utilization? That was a big factor for me.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I'm fairly new here too, but have done a ton of reading and have learned a lot already. A few things you can do to improved your score:

-Keep your card utilization under 10% but not 0%. So pay all cards in full but keep a small balance on one.

-Start a goodwill letter writing campaign to get the late payment removed from your credit report. Point out what a good customer you've been, explain the circumstances, and ask them to remove the late. Keep sending letters until they do it. Google the executives of the company and send the letter right to them.

-To maximize your score you'll need an installment loan if some sort. This could be a car loan or a personal loan. Many credit unions offer credit builder loans. With this type of loan it is a secured loan against your savings.

Continue always paying on time and using your credit responsibly and you will see your scores grow!

[Anonymous]

All great advice from about. If your score is stuck at the 640 mark my question is where are you getting your score from? Is it a true FICO score or FAKO?

And yes adding a loan will give you a boost in score after a short period of time, but my advice is don't bother taking out a secured loan or tacking on a loan if you don't need it. Diversity is good, but it's a small percentage of your FICO score.

[stargazer25]

As somebody else has mentioned, learn the cycles of your credit card statements to make sure you pay them off before the new balances are updated to the CRA's. This will affect your utilization. Also, have you asked for credit line increases since you've opened up your accounts. In case you do have an issue with utilization it could help drop it.

And yes, a loan of some type would help.