Needing Advise on Score

[Anonymous]

I pulled my Equifax FICO score & report today. I am sitting at 624. My current overall UTL is 25%. According to the score simulator if I paid a certain amount per month for 24 months it would increase my score to 694. That is the highest score for any of the scenarios the score simulator offers. I would prefer to be in the 700's in about 6mo-1yr. Can anyone suggest a plan of action for me? I do have a CH13 BK from over 4 years ago, how much is this impacting my score at this point? I am in garden currently, just received CLI on my CAP1 cards (2). I have total CL of $3900 between all of my cards & January's reporting balance was $919. I use my bank cards heavily and PIF every month or leave a small balance like $5 on at least one. Is UTL factored differently in the score model for bank card vs store card? I am wanting to increase my scores for my next big credit goal of buying a house.

Thank you in advance.

[Anonymous]

The reason for the biggest score gain - for paying off your cards over 2 years is - it factors the AAoA, along with paying all of your bills on time and no further Inqs.

Is the BK the only derog? It will continue to keep you in a dirty scoring bucket and have a significant impact on your score until it drops off, sorry. There are some who have reached low 700's with a baddie but they may have thicker files. Hopefully someone that was in your shoes can jump in and give you positive feedback

Good Luck

[Anonymous]

My advice is to pay all your cards down to $0 and then use one card a small amount, so that you have a total utilization of 1-4% (with all cards except one at $0).  Do that for a couple months and see what happens to your scores.  You can do this immediately -- gradually paying your cards down (vs. doing it all at once) does not give you any particular scoring benefit.

That will raise your score as high as it can be in terms of the stuff you can control.  (You can't change the fact that you had a BK, for example.)

Do you have any installment loans?  E.g. a car loan, student loan, personal loan?

PS.  There is no evidence that FICO views utilization of store cards vs. major credit cards differently.  If I were you I'd zero out everything except one major credit card.  You can use your major cards heavily if you like but the important thing is making sure that they REPORT all zeroes (except one card with a smallish balance).

PPS.  You need some kind of tool that will enable you to pull your credit REPORTS frequently, e.g. to see what your CC balances are at a point in time.  Credit Karma is a good free tool that will give you reports as often as once a week.

[Anonymous]

-Besides the BK the only baddies I have are 2/30 day lates in late 2013 (it is my understanding these will fall off my report this year, currently my payment history is excellent according to all my reports since I have not had any missed since) & reports are showing two collections, one being paid and closed, one just reported for $50 that I am going to take care of.

-I do have two installment loans one is a auto loan & one is a very small personal loan only being reported to TU. My auto loan is fairly new in 6/2015 and it is stating my mortgage (no mortgage) or non mortgage installment loans have a high balance. It is pretty high but how heavily is that looked at for a new car loan?

[bdhu2001]

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@Anonymous wrote:

-Besides the BK the only baddies I have are 2/30 day lates in late 2013 (it is my understanding these will fall off my report this year, currently my payment history is excellent according to all my reports since I have not had any missed since) & reports are showing two collections, one being paid and closed, one just reported for $50 that I am going to take care of.

-I do have two installment loans one is a auto loan & one is a very small personal loan only being reported to TU. My auto loan is fairly new in 6/2015 and it is stating my mortgage (no mortgage) or non mortgage installment loans have a high balance. It is pretty high but how heavily is that looked at for a new car loan?

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Lates don't fall off in four years.  They may not count as much against you after four years, but they stay for seven unless you can goodwill the  creditor and have them remove it.

Yes.  Your installment vehicle loans remaining balance counts.  From what I've read, you'll see improvement when it's less than 80% of the original balance.  The improvement you see before that is the improvement everyone gets for AAoA and longer on time payment history.

[Anonymous]

You will get some FICO points for paying your car loan down some.  But of course that's a big loan and you may not have the available cash to make a big dent in it.  What was the amount of the original loan and how much do you currently owe on it?

You use the phrase "fall off" with respect to some of your lates.  Usually when people say that, they mean that the derogs will be reaching 7 years at which point they do indeed fall off your report (except a BK which lasts longer).  But you mention that these lates happened at the end of 2013.  I think that means they wouldn't fall off till the end of 2020.  Why are you thinking they would fall off sooner?

I encourage you to get help from the people in the rebuilding forum.  Paying off collections is not always the best thing to do.  The best approach as I understand it is agreeing to pay but only if they delete it -- and you may need guidance on how to do that.  Talk to the people in the rebuilding forum.  They can help you with all of your derogs.

Most of all I encourage you to pay off your cards.  That is under your control and it will then reveal (once you see how it affects your scores) what more you need to accomplish with the derogs.

[Anonymous]

-Late Payments-I was told my several lenders (auto & mortgage) that late payments only show on your report for 2 - 3 years history. That what lenders can see can only go back two or three years of history where it physically shows your payments made ( the part that shows OK or 30, 60, 90 etc )

-My car note was $27299 to begin, I have only had it since June so It is paid down into low $26000, I have a while before it reports 80% balance.

-The collection I paid, I had to show as paid in order for my auto loan to finalize. Unfortunately, the CA would not delete from report. It was my only option and my only collection at the time. This new $50 one that just popped up ( did not know I owed ) I'm going to work on having it deleted.

[Anonymous]

Well, sadly, the other lenders who told you that late payments can only be seen for 2-3 years were mistaken.  They will be very visible to anyone who pulls your report for 7 years -- and FICO will factor them in to your score as derogatories that entire time.  The original creditor might be able to delete them earlier. and you should talk to the people in the rebuilding forum about strategies for getting them to do that.

As far as the car loan, you don't have to wait for the monthly payments to lower the amount owed.  You could probably make an early payment on the principal that would lower it.  But you may not have that kind of spare cash available, which is fine.  On that case just continue to make the regular payments.

[bdhu2001]

I co-signed a car loan for my son and have a 30 day late from 2/1010.  It's still showing on my record. I try to not get angry at my son everytime I see that blemish.  I tried to GW it, but couldn't get VW to remove it.

My credit's not horrible so I live with it, but everytime I get my score, that 30 day late is listed as the number one reason for why my score isn't higher.