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[Anonymous]

Hi all,

About four months ago, I decided it was time to put my nose to the grindstone and make a serious attempt to address my credit rating which due to my (no excuses) stupidity. After obtaining credit reports from all three agencies, I paid off all my outstanding debts/collections/old claims/etc and saw my Experian rating rise from an utterly terrible 577 to a not-so-terrible, but-still-pretty-terrible 613. Since then, though, the sucker  appears to just be parked where it's at and refuses to budge. Although I know these things take time, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help it along.
Currently I have no debt whatsoever, no outstanding collections, no open credit cards (have had them in the past and my history with them was pretty bad), am a renter, etc. Except for my history, I'm basically a blank slate on that front.
At this juncture, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to take out a secured credit card or two. Would that be wise at this point, or am I better off just sitting tight for now? If so, how do I go about it (take out with small balances or one wih a larger balance, do I space applying for them out six months or so), is there a company I should go with that reports to all three agencies, etc? Would my score improve faster after taking the initial hit than sitting where I'm at?
And finally, how long can I expect it to take for my credit report to return to the land of the living? I'd [i]really[/i] like to not have something that is completely laughable within a year and a half or so. Is that reasonable?

[sunshine7157]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi all,

About four months ago, I decided it was time to put my nose to the grindstone and make a serious attempt to address my credit rating which due to my (no excuses) stupidity. After obtaining credit reports from all three agencies, I paid off all my outstanding debts/collections/old claims/etc and saw my Experian rating rise from an utterly terrible 577 to a not-so-terrible, but-still-pretty-terrible 613. Since then, though, the sucker  appears to just be parked where it's at and refuses to budge. Although I know these things take time, I was wondering if there was anything I could do to help it along.
Currently I have no debt whatsoever, no outstanding collections, no open credit cards (have had them in the past and my history with them was pretty bad), am a renter, etc. Except for my history, I'm basically a blank slate on that front.
At this juncture, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to take out a secured credit card or two. Would that be wise at this point, or am I better off just sitting tight for now? If so, how do I go about it (take out with small balances or one wih a larger balance, do I space applying for them out six months or so), is there a company I should go with that reports to all three agencies, etc? Would my score improve faster after taking the initial hit than sitting where I'm at?
And finally, how long can I expect it to take for my credit report to return to the land of the living? I'd [i]really[/i] like to not have something that is completely laughable within a year and a half or so. Is that reasonable?

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I found myself in this same boat a few years ago. First off, you need to build your credit back up. Yes, time will help things along but at a very, very slow pace. Having 0 debt isn't going to help you in your 'payment history' catagory (which is the biggest one, by the way). You need to re-establish a good payment history after your bad one. In order to do that, you're going to need open credit accounts to report a new payment history. Most secured cards DO report to all 3 but you need to do your homework to find out which ones. The more accounts you have reporting on-time payments, the faster your score will grow. I myself would get 2 or 3 accounts, whether it be secured or otherwise to get the ball rolling. A year from now, the inquiries from opening them will no longer impact your score, nor will they show as 'new' after that point. At that time, you will be able to start getting lower-level unsecured cards. The trick to all this is to make sure you let 1 small balance report on only one card every month & keep this balance less than 10% of your total available credit- keeping it less than 5% might be even better. After a year of this, you should see a significant improvement in your score.

[LIGHTNIN]

Where are you pulling your credit scores?   Are they FICO's or FAKO's?

Hi and Welcome to the forums,

IME before I found this site, I thought I had terrible credit score but then I found out my FICO score was 100pts more then my FAKO score. What a relief. That was my experience, others have found their FAKO to be higher. YMMV.

  My I ask...What do you have reporting on your CR's? (the good, the bad and the ugly).

Any positive items?    How old is..... the history with the bad CC's?

[Anonymous]

The numbers are from purchased reports on myfico.com, so real FICOs, I believe.

The CCs are both secured credit cards I took out six (October 2005)  and three years ago, respectively, ironically for the purpose of improving my credit. Both had (relatively) small limits. The first exploded after I lost my job in the recession (but have been gainfully employed for over five years now). The second exploded after I was just plain stupid. Also on my reports (Transunion and Equifax):

1) College loans, both private and public, paid in full about six years ago, totalling about $20k

2) Late bills, all of which have been paid in full. I have not had a single late bill for eleven months now.

3) No public records, judgments, etc.
4) No outstanding balances and all balances paid in full.

5) Only one recent collection, 1 yr, 2 mo ago.

6) No inquiries.

7) Creditkarma is showing a mystery CC with $0/$12,000, opened five years ago, on it. Considering I just pulled a report from Transunion, I don't think there's any way this can be true. It seems like a scam just to get me to purchase another Transunion report. There's no way I would be approved for that.

THANK YOU!

[LIGHTNIN]

Hi,

It's a good feeling, once you get started putting your finances in order.

I'm alittle confused...The 2 secure CC's.Are they open and current or closed?

I only see your EX score, in your 1st post. Yes, the TU and EQ score here are real FICO's.

No lates for almost one year, that's a great start.  Each individual late will drop off your CR ,at the 7 year mark.

Recent baddies hurt more then older ones. 

Your Collection that's 1 yr old, if it's paid....You may want to send a  G W letter.

As for the mystery CC .......It could be ID theft....Or if you have a very popular name, the CRA may have made a mistake and put someone else's CC info on your CR.

That's a few ideas I had. I'll let others jump in with their ideas and advice.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much. I will be honest, both Cc's, which were with my credit union that I've been a member with since 2004, are closed. The first happened because I lost my job. The second happened because I was an idiot and neglected to plan ahead. The collection was with verizon and I haven't been their customer for quite some time. My first name is extremely uncommon, so I don't think that's an issue.

I am utterly determined to straighten this out.

[ceejx]

Without seeing your credit report it's hard to say what on your report is causing your low scores. Things that effect your scores are credit history length, amount of negatives, time since your last negative, how negative they were etc... About a year ago I was in the very low 400s, but after paying off old debt and disputing a lot, I lost most of the negatives on my report, some just changing all the 30s 60s 90s and 120s to NO DATA which seems to have affected my score for the better.

As far as disputes, I've read on many posts that disputing might ruin your chances for good wills in the future, but disputes (through the CRA's websites directly) worked for me, removing about 80% of the negs on my reports and the last few I have I am starting to GW.

Some things to keep in mind. Try not to lose your oldest accounts, even if negative they could negatively effect your score if they drop off as the length of your credit history will shrink. Also after about 3 applications, I was given a Capital One Platinum with a $300 limit that just started reporting on my reports and gave me a big jump. I've read that you want to be at about $2,000 total revolving credit and keep the utilization at 14% or lower. I use my card ONLY for auto-pay with my bills and pay my card down to $40 a few days before the statement date each month and let it report, then pay off the entire balance before the due date 25 days later, that way $40 reports to each of the CRAs giving me a 13.3% UTI per the reports but I never have to pay finance charges.

Sorry if I rambled, its a late night with lots of coffee. Hope that helped.