My Fico score never increases

[Anonymous]

Here is my dilemma, my credit scores from transunion and equifax are stuck at C grade level (665) and nothing I do  improves them.

In fact my transunion score is borderline poor. 

6 years ago my credit was pretty bad, no CC's, a collections account, and 2 -30 day lates on an auto loan.  Since then I have improved my score, but it hasn't budged in the past 2 years!  I've never had a bankruptcy, or public record. 

Currently I have 5 + years of 100% ontime payments, 2 CCs with balances below 30%, CC limits of over $10k, and a car loan. No negatives in 5+ years, and only a few hard credit inquiries.  Yet I'm still considered a moderate/high credit risk??  2 years ago i had 1 CC with a $1000 limit, so i went out and got a 2nd CC with a $8500 limit, still no imrovement in credit score.  My age of accounts gets older, still no increase in score. 

I keep reading advice that says pay your bills on time and keep CC balances low and your score will increase.   Well that isn't working for me.  I have no idea how to improve my score now.   If average age of accts and ontime payments imrove your score then why doesn't my score tick up as the months go by?  I don't expect my score to be perfect and I know it takes time, but at this rate i will need 10+ years of perfect credit to achieve a meager score of 700. 

What am I doing wrong? 

[kjm79]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Here is my dilemma, my credit scores from transunion and equifax are stuck at C grade level (665) and nothing I do  improves them.

In fact my transunion score is borderline poor. 

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Let me start by asking this, where are your scores from?  The scores here at myFico don't give "grades" so to speak.  That sounds like a FAKO score term.  Also, myFico tells you what's hurting/helping your score specifically.  If the scores are from myFico, listing what you have on your reports will help people here be able to provide better input. 

[Anonymous]

I got the scores from Truecredit.com and equifax.com

[Anonymous]

Hi james111,

Welcome!  Glad you're here!

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kjm79 wrote:

Let me start by asking this, where are your scores from?  The scores here at myFico don't give "grades" so to speak.  That sounds like a FAKO score term.  Also, myFico tells you what's hurting/helping your score specifically.  If the scores are from myFico, listing what you have on your reports will help people here be able to provide better input. 

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+1!

When you pull a FICO score from here, you will also get a report that shows your best actions (specific to your credit report) moving forward to increase your FICO score.

In addition, when you find out what your true FICO scores are, you should be able to see some true FICO movement if you adjust your utilization.

FICO cares about overall utilization and individual utilization.  Most all folks do their FICO best when one card reports less than 9% utilization, and the other cards reporting zero balance.  Most, not all, cards report your balance as of the statement date.  This tool alone will probably see a FICO score increase for you.

If you've gottten FAKO scores from other websites, be aware that those scores are accompanied with FAKO advice.  Following that advice can, and does, damage true FICO scores. 

Hope that's helpful!

[smallfry]

You will see a vast improvement once all your negatives drop from your credit reports. Just keep paying on time until then and keep the utilization low.

[BungalowMo]

Lots of great advice here!  If you still have some collections showing, they're probably keeping you in a certain bucket.  I didn't read the entire thread, but here's some information on buckets --> http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/What-s-a-bucket/m-p/936956/highlight/true...

The longer you're here & the more you read & ask, more on how FICO scoring works will make sense.  For now, just keep paying down those debts and your scores will go up, I promise!

A couple examples of what is possible...I had a paid collection on my Equifax report & it was 1 year away from being dropped & it dropped early...I got a 30 point jump!  Just a couple weeks ago, my last baddie on Trans Union, a 90 day late on Sallie Mae school loan dropped a couple months early...my TU went from 706 to 751!!  You will read on other credit boards that after 2 years or so, these bad marks don't hurt...my scores are proof that once they're gone, even after aging almost 7 years, your scores take a big jump!

Hang in there...it WILL happen!  I promise!

[Anonymous]

Here's an update.  A 6 year old collection account finally fell off my credit report.  My credit score on TU shot up from 660 to 720, and EQ 675 to 715.  Clearly that old collection account was dragging me down.  I'm glad that it fell of early (not the full 7 years).