Our Forums' FICO High Achievers: Who has at least one FICO Score of 760 or above?

[Anonymous]

I'd be curious to know the percentage of those with 800+ credit scores that had really bad credit at some point.  I feel like for the majority to want to achieve such scores, they may have hit the bottom at some point... to the point where they sought out education (perhaps this forum) and as a result learned the tricks of the game as you suggested above.  I think there are probably few (relatively) people out there with 800+ scores that just happened to stumble on the right set of ingredients to achieve such a score without learning about the ingredients at some point. 

[sarge12]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'd be curious to know the percentage of those with 800+ credit scores that had really bad credit at some point.  I feel like for the majority to want to achieve such scores, they may have hit the bottom at some point... to the point where they sought out education (perhaps this forum) and as a result learned the tricks of the game as you suggested above.  I think there are probably few (relatively) people out there with 800+ scores that just happened to stumble on the right set of ingredients to achieve such a score without learning about the ingredients at some point. 

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I know in my youth I probably set some records for low scores...of course I did not know my score or even what was on my CRA. I actually first got an 800 before I knew anything about this forum due to a mortgage with 12 years of on time payments and no other debt...so it is possible without credit cards...it was 801. EDIT...BBS that was on a goldwing motorcycle in 2010 and I do not know what scoring model it was, so it could have been one that went to 900 for all I know.

[Anonymous]

I hear you.  I think many of us didn't know our scores before they were ever important to us.  The first time I ever knew what my actual score was wasn't until 2012, about 15 years into my credit life.  I happened to be getting an auto loan and they said they had to "run my credit" which I said go for it and they came back and said "your score is 790, very nice!" or something.  I didn't even know until I got the auto loan paperwork and such what the 790 was out of (the scoring range) and I had no clue what went into the score.  Exactly 3 years later I returned to the same dealership for another loan, assuming my credit score would be about the same and they told me it was 619 and they were having a lot of trouble getting me approved.  It was at that time I started doing some internet research and found that it was several late payments across multiple accounts that killed my score.  Ever since then I've been much more into it of course... but without ever seeing it drop like that I highly doubt I would have ever done anything in terms of monitoring or caring about what the score was.  Funny how things change and evolve.

[LilyBee]

Well, all I can say about my scores is thanks to my mom and dad who said to always pay our bills on time.  They just did that intuitively because there were no FICO scores back in their days.  But, they always had wisdom they gladly shared with their nine kids.  Some of us learned; some didn't.  I've never been late for any bill, and always paid them off promptly by force of habit (or being allergic to credit cards).  Then I discovered FICO about 10 years ago when I got my first mortgage by myself.  How fun to know that my spending habits have been rewarded.

When talking with one of my sons about FICO scores, he said that his was 769; whereupon I exclaimed that was fantastic.  (He knows what mine are because I paste my latest numbers on my home office wall.)  I went on to say that one of the Forum contributors said that scores over 760 were fluff.  He laughed when he offered that mine were 'fluffier' than most.  

What's amazing to me is to check out other Forum categories once in awhile and see that some folks are really struggling with low scores.  That just shows that it's never too early to teach kids about proper spending habits.  And, to add age-appropriate financial planning to schools' curricula.  Kids learn easily when they are young.  Look at all the 1- & 2-year olds fiddling with all the tech gadgets.  Some will never learn how to write or cipher.  I guess that's progress of a sort.

Soapbox out.

[sarge12]

Well I guess I'm older than you all, because fico did not exist until 1989...I was 31 then.

[LilyBee]

Well, as the old saying goes:  "Too soon old, too late smart."

[tmacar]

Not there yet, but ought to be by this time next year.  I have a FICO 8 of 677, which doesn't sound very impressive unless you realize I filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in June 2015 and was discharged in December 2015, just 16 months ago.

First, I filed before I'd picked up any write offs, collections, judgemets, or even 30 day late payments.  With a fixed indome, and having not reveived about $4K I'd planned on getting in May '15, it was obvious I was sunk, so I filed immediately instead of dragging it out and picking up a bunch of negatives in my credit history.  Then I took some extraordinary measures (selling a couple things for way less than I could have gotten, just enough to pay off the loans) to protect my bank.  Then I reaffirmed the one loan left at the bank, reaffirmed a large part of the debt with one revolving account, and reaffirmed another in total and they opened a new, active, account for me, with a limit of exactly what I owed them.  TThat let me start over with active accounts both installment and revolving.  And after a few months I opened a couple easy to get accounts, like Fingerhut.

So I have over 13 years of history, with everything perfect except for 1 public record and thirteen 30 day lates, all in June 2015.  In another couple months those lates and that bankruptcy will go over 2 years old, and that will give me a noticeable jump up.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I hear you.  I think many of us didn't know our scores before they were ever important to us.  The first time I ever knew what my actual score was wasn't until 2012, about 15 years into my credit life.  I happened to be getting an auto loan and they said they had to "run my credit" which I said go for it and they came back and said "your score is 790, very nice!" or something.  I didn't even know until I got the auto loan paperwork and such what the 790 was out of (the scoring range) and I had no clue what went into the score.  Exactly 3 years later I returned to the same dealership for another loan, assuming my credit score would be about the same and they told me it was 619 and they were having a lot of trouble getting me approved.  It was at that time I started doing some internet research and found that it was several late payments across multiple accounts that killed my score.  Ever since then I've been much more into it of course... but without ever seeing it drop like that I highly doubt I would have ever done anything in terms of monitoring or caring about what the score was.  Funny how things change and evolve.

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First time I ever saw my credit scores was on my January 2014 Discover card statement. TU Fico 8 at 850. Score stayed the same every statement so I thought: what a joke. I decided to look for another source for a Fico score and found out that I could get a Fico score through Equifax (ScorePower). I purchased a score/report in June 2014 and it came back as 764 (later figured out it was a Fico 04 score). At the time all I knew was that the two Fico scores did not jive and investigation was required.

I became obsessed with scores - any scoring model from any source and subsequently spent an inordinate amount of time gathering data on how my profile scored. It has been enlightening to learn how the various models react to changes in my credit use. Fico is not the only game in town  - VantageScore and LexisNexis have their niche markets as do other scoring models. Just today I sent in an application to get a free credit report & score that is based on checking account history. Hey - why not.

[Anonymous]

Since April 2016 my scores have skyrocketed with the knowledge I have gained from this forum-

TU: 747 to 839

EX: 717 to 821

EQ: 738 to 827

[LilyBee]

Good for you, E2W.  It pays, in more ways than one, to be smart about our spending habits.  Keep up the good work.