Anything of this worth disputing?

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty new at this, and just purchased all 3 FICO scores from this site.  Considering how new my credit is, the scores are pretty good (b/w 703-729).  Reading over my 3 credit reports, though, a few things surprised me.  I'm just hoping somebody can explain what's going on, and in a couple cases, tell me if there's anything worth disputing here.

1.  When I was in college, I was half-tricked into filling out a credit card application for 2 free pizzas.  I figured that I'd just get signed up for junk mail, and if they sent me a card offer, I'd just throw it away.  That's what I did.  Never opened the thing.  Never spent a dime.  Now that card shows up on all three of my credit reports.  Funny thing is, though, is that it's my oldest "card", and therefore I think it makes it look like I have a longer credit history than I really do.  Could it possibly be helping me?

One report describes this card as "closed" and "paid or paying as agreed".

Another report describes it as "paid account / zero balance" and "pays account as agreed".

The third report only says "account paid satisfactorily".  

What's my best course of action on this?

2.  I always thought once you closed a credit card, it would no longer show up in your credit history.  Is this incorrect?  A (secured) card I had open from May 2006 - Feb 2008 is still showing up in 2 of my reports.  Both reports list it as closed.  The third report doesn't list the card at all.  Is this affecting the scores in these two reports in a good/bad way?  Or not at all?  Suggestions?

3. One of my reports (but not the other two) is picking up two different inquiries that it shouldn't be.   It's showing an inquiry from my cable company (not entirely sure what this was about - renting the cable box, perhaps?), and one from my current landlord.  Since these didn't have anything to do with applying for new credit, I didn't expect them to show up.  They both occurred last July.  If I don't plan on applying for any loans until after THIS July, would the most sensible option be to just ignore them?

4. I was under the impression that paying things like cable bills / electic bills / cell phone bills / apartment leases helped your credit score.  None of these showed up on any of my reports.  Is that normal?

I apologize if my credit issues aren't quite as exciting as some of the others on this board (e.g. those people labeled as "deceased" for some reason), but I'd certainly appreciate any guidance.  I have a very young credit history and want to keep it going in the right direction.

Thanks!

[llecs]

1) Don't touch that account. Removing it will drop your scores.

2) Once you close an account, it will continue to report for an additional 10 years, or 7 years if the TL is reporting as a bad account. Your BofA should be removed 2/2018.

3) Ignore the inquiries. Disputing inquiries can lead to a fraud alert and you really don't want that. It is normal for cable, alarm companies, banks when opening a checking or savings, etc. to pull your credit. Some landlords pull reports too. Moreover, FICO will stop reading the inquiry at the 1 year mark.

4) Paying everyday bills don't help your credit score, because they usually do not report.

For more info, check out:

Credit Scoring 101

[haulingthescoreup]

For any others reading here in your situation, this is an important formula to learn:

filling out application + they approve you = a new account

This is true whether or not you want it, accept it, activate it, use it, or acknowledge its existence.

Congrats on your surprisingly useful pizza-induced account. You might think about calling the bank (was it Discover?) and telling them that the magnetic stripe on your card is a dud, and can they send you another one. If they do, use it once every two or three months for a tank of gas, pay it off online the moment it shows up, and guard it like the precious possession that it is.

I would absolutely kill to have an account with clean history dating from my college days.

[Anonymous]

Funny how being kind of irresponsible and just signing a credit card application for free pizza has helped me out...

Thanks a lot!

[Anonymous]

The pizza-induced card was with Chase.

I'm pretty young, so this card is only from April 2006.  My oldest most active card began in February 2008 (like I said, I had an older secured card which I've closed).

Do you think it would be worth getting ahold of the Chase card for an extra 22 months of credit history?

[haulingthescoreup]

Oh, absolutely.

There are various categories of credit profiles, which we call "score buckets." These exist to help you be compared to your credit peers, instead of to credit veterans with 40 years of perfect history.

One of the transition points for score buckets that we're pretty sure of is having your oldest account hit/ pass 24 months.

Seems worth a try, anyway.