I cant improve my scores - HELP please

[Anonymous]

I need some advice.

My FICO scores are listed below in my signature.

In 2003 I had one 30 day late, I missed mailing a credit card payment and I was unaware of it until the next bill arrived.

Prior to this my FICO scores where in the 770's, I have never been able to rebound.

My oldest account is now 31 years old with Chase Visa and has a $35,000 limit and that account is still open and I use it monthly. I also have a total of 31 credit cards of which 27 of them are all over 5 years old. One open PRIME mortgage always paid on time.

I never owe out more then 1% of my credit lines.

Is there anything I am doing wrong?  I would like to get back to my old scores.  I wrote to HSBC several times over the years regarding that 30 day late from 2003 but they refuse to remove it.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[haulingthescoreup]

That doesn't make sense that a 5-year-old 30-day is doing this.

Is 1% your reported util, the amount that actually posts?

How many open accounts of which types (mortgage, installment, revolving) do you have, and how many generally report a balance, even if you pay it off immediately?

What negative comments do you get on screen 2 of your three FICO scores?

[Anonymous]

I always pay off most of my credit cards online before the statement closing date. I only let up to $200 on any one card post, and never more then $800 at any given time.

I have no open installment loans, I show 9 paid in full auto loans AS AGREED

I have the one open mortgage taken out as a PRIME which shows Wells Fargo and Fannie Mae conventional PAYS AS AGREED taken out in 7/08

5 prior mortgages all PIF as agreed.

I switch off my cards and use all my cards at least once every two months, none ever go more then that.

right now, 6 cards are reporting a balance from $14 to $172 with credit lines all over $5,000

FICO remarks on the following;

Payment History   GREAT

Amount of Debt     GREAT

Length of credit history  GREAT

Amount of new credit     GOOD

NEGATIVE comments there is one

YOU HAVE BEEN RECENTLY looking for credit  THREE inquiries in the past year.

What is HELPING score

1) You have no missed payments on your credit accounts (yet I have one 30 day late from 2003)

2) You have limited the use of your available credit.

3) You have shown recent use of your credit cards

4) You have a long credit history.

That is it. Am I missing something here?

Could my 31 open credit cards be the cause?

I really have no idea, let me know what you think.

[Anonymous]

I just noticed something.  Since my amount of NEW CREDIT is only GOOD I went back to see why and here is what I found;

I did open 2 new credit card accounts, one in 9/08, 11/08, and the mortgage in 07/08.

Back in 01/08  I called Chase and asked them to close two of my cards and issue me new cards as I may  have used the two cards on a Phishing site.

I just noticed that the two new cards which replaced the two I closed show an OPENING DATE of 01/08 and not the 7 year old date and the 9 year old dates that the original accounts where.  Could that be it??????????

[laz98]

i would definitely ask them to change the dates for you.

[haulingthescoreup]

You've been hit by having three new accounts (plus the seemingly new two Chase accounts) within the last 12 months. You can try to get them to back-date the Chase cards for general purposes, but they'll have their "birthdays" in 10 days.

More importantly, for your score question, I'd say that you are in the ultra-long, ultra-clean history score bucket, and people in that bucket typically don't go looking for new credit. When they do, they get hit hard, especially for two or more accounts within a year. (If you were relatively new to credit, you wouldn't be penalized so much for seeking additional credit, as this is expected behavior for that group.) So you've gotten dinged for this, and once two of the inqs and accounts hit 12 months, I'd say that you'll be back where you were.

In addition, there are the three inqs on the one report. Is that on your EQ, btw? (as it's your lowest score.)

Inquiries are counted in the "amount of new credit" category, which would explain the GOOD status there. But they're only counted on the score for that particular report.

One five-year-old 30 is nothing but a freckle on your reports. As you can see from the positive comments, it is no longer counted in scoring.

Again, which score report is this? And how many inqs on the other two reports?

[Anonymous]

OK, I just called Chase and they said they will correct the problem with the dates on my credit report right away. They will back date the openings to the original account dates of 7 and 9 years ago.

The 3 inquiries are on my EQ.  The GOOD on new credit are my EQ.

New accounts on my TU and EX are VERY GOOD.

My TU has 2 inquiries and my EX has 1 inquiry.

The new credit card I opened in 9/08 is only being reported on my EQ and NOT on my TU or EX so I have one additonal NEW account on my EQ then on the others.

The mortgage I took out this year inquiry is on all 3 of the reports.

I just checked my WAMU online Fico score and it states that in 12/07 my FICO with TU was 802.  This was before I took a stand and started to check my own credit reports on a weekly basis.

Therefore, you are correct.  The 30 day late from 2003 has no bearing on my lower scores.

It must be all the NEW accounts and not the amount of credit cards I have (I would have bet the bank that my huge amount of accouts was the reason)  I was wrong about that as well.

I mean really, a 702 at EQ?????????????  I am NOT saying that a 702 is bad but I think I took some major hits for things that I do NOT see why they hit me like that.

The EQ has listed as of 12/19/2008 as my oldest account as the chase card as being 31 years 0 months.

I just feel shafted with a 702 at EQ.  Am I wrong???????

Is there anything I can do to get these scores back up? or will time cure this over the next few months?

Once again, I want to thank you for all of your help and if you ever need a good Medical Examiner , do not hesitate to contact me

[RobertEG]

The only thing I would add, and it is minor, but FICO also looks at the percent of cards showing reported balances each month.  With that high number of active cards to manage, I would look at the percent of cards reporting balances of the total cards open. 

Do a PIF on all open cards before their CRA reporting date next month, and let us know it that made a difference.

I predict that it will.

BTW:  If you are a proctology examiner, I will decline your kind offer!

Message Edited by RobertEG on 12-22-2008 01:05 AM

Message Edited by RobertEG on 12-22-2008 01:07 AM

[haulingthescoreup]

---

Mark-MD wrote:

Is there anything I can do to get these scores back up? or will time cure this over the next few months?

...Once again, I want to thank you for all of your help and if you ever need a good Medical Examiner , do not hesitate to contact me

---

The ding from the inquiries will continue for 12 months after they occurred, but you will start seeing your scores float back up as each new account ages through this year. I've seen bumps as early as a month after opening an account, and you should see something as each hits around 3 months and 6 months. And congrats on getting Chase to clean up the dates.

lol, I hope I don't need an ME anytime soon (I'm only 54), although now that I think about it, there are some folks in my office that are getting on my nerves... But hey, I'm a hospital and professional-fee coder, so let me know if you ever need some ICD-9 and CPT-4 codes! (sorry, terribly rusty on SNOMED.)


eta: Oh, and I wanted to add: I'm not sure if you realize this, but the score that you get on your WaMu statements is a FICO TU score, but it's a "credit-card enhanced" score, weighted toward predicting CC behavior and on a different scale from classic FICO TU scores. So you can compare one PFICO score (as we call these CC-enhanced scores) to another, but you can't compare them to classics.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 12-22-2008 05:03 AM

[Anonymous]

I just ran my FICO scores again tonight. Chase has corrected the problem.

EQ 757, TU 805, EX 798

I guess having the extra new credit card from 11/08 is still the cause of the EQ score being now 757.  It is way better then the 702 I had prior.

Thanks again for all your help.

I will just let time run its course and I am sure that the EQ will rebound once the new CC ages.