adding credit card?

[brannigan1]

I raised my scores to the low 700's recently. I am graded as a "C" on open accounts and a "C" on CC utilization. I show one furniture store account with a limit of $3000 and a 0 balance. Im not even sure its still an open account. It lists as "inactive"

I am using 0 in credit cards. I have a auto loan and a mortgage.

After raising my scores, im almost scared to apply for a credit card. Looking for expertise on this subject. Seems I kinda need to get a CC and charge one thing a month and pay it off or something on those lines. Just want to confirm and get some opinions. Thankyou

[Gunnar419]

Whose grades are these? If they're from Credit Karma, ignore them completely.

If you're aiming to raise your score further, you probably would benefit by having a credit card or three. But if you're uncomfortable having cards, then don't let anybody's raiting system pressure you into it.

[brannigan1]

Yes, it was credit karma's grade but what I noticed about credit Karma was they were very close to my credit scores pulled by creditors versus the equifax monitoring of all 3 site, which was off by roughly 100 points to the positive side. It is really a disservice by these monitoring sites giving you inflated false scores.

[SpeeDj]

They really aren't false scores, just a different scoring model than FICO, they are good to keep an eye on things though so I wouldn't discount them too much.

JP

[Shogun]

With the exception of monitoring new accounts and some changes to accounts, CK is OK.  But as far as scores go?  Absolutely worthless.