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Remember, part of the scoring is age of accounts. By adding the accounts, the age went down. As time goes on, and they age, you will see scores start to pick up again.
Check to make sure nothing negative appeared on your credit as well.
just pulled my new reports on credit check total and on here and nothing but the 2 new credit cards changed. my AAoA did drop from the 3 new credit cards. I only have 4 paid medical bills showing as negative and 22 accounts that has never been late.
The hit will increase quickly with on time payments. Keep up a GW campaign on the paid collections. It just takes one person to say yes and help you out, Good luck.
Adding cards should have a long term positive affect, but the short term, as you found out, can be a bit of a disappointment. If you had a higher balance previous to adding the cards, you may have had an immediate positive impact due to utilization improvements, but in your case, you just got the hit on AAoA.
Credit rebuilding is a long game, you took a step forward in that game, though it may take 6 months to realize the benefit. Since you had an card already and had previous credit, this isn't a 'magic bullet' but eventually, will add a few extra points.
Clearing the collections will get you more points, even if they stay on the report but convert to paid. Once paid, even if not deleted, they start aging and losing the impact on your score.
Dan