Hello everybody.

[Anonymous]

Hi. I stumbled across this site just reading various web articles and decided to join since I like browsing different forums. I've never payed attention to my credit at all for the 26 years of my life until coming across this forum. I find it kind of interesting and I'd like to work on raising my score now. Any tips for me and my current situation would be great. -I have two school loans I am in the process of repaying -A car lease -One BofA bank acct. -An old Macy's card that I haven't touched for about five years -No other credit cards except an Amex blue cash that I just applied for and received in the mail a few days ago. I've never had a late payment or anything of the sort and last I recall my credit is somewhere around 710. Any advice on how to raise my score? I read a thread somewhere here about having more CC's than open accounts or something of that nature. Should I be applying for more CC's? I was thinking of applying for a visa/mc and discover card as well. Would that help any? I do not plan on buying a house or anything major anytime in the near future, so can I just go on a spree and get some more CC's or should I wait and spread the applications over a couple of months? And lastly, why do people wait when applying for more CC's anyway? Thanks and nice forum.

[demo18c]

The first thing I would do is get updated scores from myfico.com. these are real fico scores and can only be obtained from this site

[llecs]

Check out credit scoring 101 found stickied here somewhere.

Ideally, you'd want about 3 open CCs with one of those a charge CC. Anything else, IMO, will make it easier for utilization, but you will get dinged for the new credit account and dinged for your drop in your average history. I've seen folks with 800 scores with just 3 CCs.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. I have been approved for 3 cards as of today. I will slow down and try and build on these. Now I am looking to order my credit report and score, but was wondering a few things. What are the differences between Equifax and Transunion. Why does the Equifax scorewatch package cost almost twice the amount of the Transunion quaterly monitoring one, but with 1/2 the amount of scores and reports? I am just curious, as I think I am going to get the credit complete package either way. Also, when talking to the lady at Chase, she informed me that my Amex and Discover card were not yet showing on my credit report, so I am wondering when all my cards will actually appear. I'd like to order my report after the dust settles, so would anyone happen to know how long I should wait?

[llecs]

I believe the best solution to tracking credit is to subscribe to a credit monitoring service. I subscribe to TrueCredit (via TU) and Creditchecktotal (CCT) through EX. Both do the same. TC is much cheaper. But for about $15 per month you can pull your reports daily and see what is happening and you can see who is reporting what. Ignore those score and advice.

Each CRA is different. If you were to pull TU vs EQ, you'll find a different score. Same for TU vs EX and EX vs EQ. When starting, I recommend everyone pull all three reports from MyFICO. Subscribe to a monitoring service, and pull each CR directly from each CRA. Then monitor and pull MyFICO reports whenever there's a change that you want to track (score-wise).

As far as new accounts go, some report as early as a week. Some may take a month or two or three. YMMV based on the card.

[Anonymous]

I think I will take your advice on that one. I am looking at Equifax's and Transunion's site. Both of their monitoring programs are $15. Is one preferred over the other(layout, etc.), or are they pretty much the same? I will probably subscribe to one of these for now and order the fico credit complete package in a few months to see where I stand. Thanks. This forum makes doing all this much easier.

[llecs]

Outside of monitoring, you'd want a service that offers reports too. EQ, as far as I know, does not offer that. They do have a 3-in-1 monitoring for about $15, but you don't get to see your reports. TU offers TC, and I like it. EX offers creditchecktotal for all 3. I don't think EQ offers a 3-in-1 report service. Then there are 3rd parties out there like Amex's service (credit secure?) or Chase's CMS (forgot that name too, a bit slow today, need coffee).

TC seems favored for their layout. For the most part, they don't show the full history, but will show some dates, will list out late tallies, balances, contact info, etc. They aren't too bad. And you can update your reports once every 24 hrs. Also there seems to be a coupon code somewhere for $10 per month or something like that via google I guess.

Rambled too much, but you want something that monitors and allows you to pull all 3 reports.