Accounts sold causing too short credit history, too little credit available (and paid)

[Anonymous]

I’ve searched the forums but can't find answers to these issues.  If anyone can help, or direct me to answers that might already be in the forums somewhere, I'd appreciate it.  

I recently got my 3 credit reports, my TU FAKO score and my EQ FICO score.  Not awful scores, but not great.  The factors I’ve been given for the lower scores appear to be based on one reason – my mortgage and credit cards have all been purchased by another lender, who sold to another, who sold to another, etc.

Factors:

1) average credit on revolving accounts too low

2) too many revolving accounts

The number of revolving accounts I have shows 7, but in reality 5 of them are the same card that was sold.  The CC I have is paid off, the other is just a gas card.

Two of the CC’s (same card, different companies) show a 30 day late back in 2005 and I’m being dinged a negative by BOTH of them.  That doesn’t seem right.  I would think the older one should either not be counted as a negative or shouldn't be reporting activity.

3) amount paid on mortgage accounts is too low

4) average credit amount on open RE accounts is too low

Mortgage issues seem to be the same thing – purchased by different companies, so the amount of available credit is low since the balance they show is the amount they bought and since they just bought it, I don’t show very much paid on it. 

5) credit history too short.

Since these accounts are all sold, the length of time reported for my credit history is short because they are only looking at when the most recent account was opened.  They don’t seem to be taking into account that I’ve had credit accounts for 20 years.

Where do I start and what (if anything) can I do to have these issues resolved?

[Tuscani]

Actually, In the area of length of credit history, closed accounts are treated no differently than open accounts.  That is, the length of history on a closed acct still gets counted right along with the rest of the closed account's history.  In fact, the length of credit history gets counted for every trade line on your report, regardless.

How old is your oldest REPORTED TL?

[SoulSmilen]

I've never thought of this circumstance, but I can see where it would be a thorn.

While the older accounts are still there and counting, every 'new' account added shortens the overall history length... if you only have 2 accounts and they are 20 years old, the average age is reduced considerably by the appearance of 5 new accounts.

Example:

Account 1: 20 years

Account 2: 20 years

Account 3: 5 years

Account 4: 4 years

Account 5: 3 years

Account 6: 2 years

Account 7: 1 year

Those 2 old and faithful accounts don't mean a hill of beans now - average age has been reduced to just under 8 years old. Ouch!

[Anonymous]

When you say 'reported TL', are you refering to date opened, date last updated, date closed - or any/all of the above. 

On the TU report, oldest:

Open date: 12/1988 (school loans), many others in early and mid 90's

Closed date: 8/1998 (just noticed all school loans paid off 1999, none show closed)

Updated: 6/1999

On EQ, oldest:

Open date: 12/1988 (school loans), many others in early and mid 90's

Closed: 5/2003 - however, all but 2 have no closed date (even though the notes may say 'closed or paid zero balance)

Reported (same as updated??): 5/1999

So with oldest date being 1988, 19 years of history is 'too short' according to the CRA's?

Are all accounts that are listed on the report considered in the score?  I can't tell on the TU report if they are considered 'active', whereas on EQ, they list each account as 'open', 'closed', 'good standing', 'currently past due', 'negative history'.

Thanks.