topic Re: Credit Card question in Credit Cards

Credit Card question

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:00:43 GMT

I am in the process of paying off all the balances of my credit cards. They don't really have high limits, and I have a lot of store credit cards. I have poor credit, what can I do to boost this? Also, should I consider closing some cards? I am trying to buy a house within the next 6 months- a yr. Thanks!

Re: Credit Card question

fused — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:16:07 GMT

Welcome! You say you have poor credit, do you know your FICO scores? Can you list all of your accounts: CCs with credit limits and balances and when they were opened, any opened or closed installments such student loans, autos or personal loans, charge-offs, collections, judgments or other public records? I would love to help you but just need some info.

Re: Credit Card question

haulingthescoreup — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:21:13 GMT

Yes, really, asyiasmami, if you will post where you are now, people here will help you get where you want to be! Even if you think that your credit reports are a complete mess, everyone here has seen a whole lot worse. And please don't close any cards, unless and until you know exactly what you're doing.

"Asyia" --that's a very pretty name! Girl? boy? how old?

Re: Credit Card question

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:26:39 GMT

Here is all of my credit info! Pls help, and let me know if its realistic to improve my FICO scores to 680 within 6 months!

My FICO Scores= Transunion: 591/ Equifax: 577/ Experian: 568

Tradelines:

US Dept of Ed Student Loan: 23,904 Paid off, transferred to consolidation agency

Callie Mae (Student Loan) balance: 27,671; 30 day late

Callie Mae (Student Loan) balance: 12,809; 30 day late

Callie Mae (Student Loan) balance: 1,352; 30 day late

USF Student Loan 5,500 Paid off, transferred to diff consolidation agency; 30 days late, 60 days late

ACS (Consolidated Student Loan) 21,816 Paid off, transferred to diff consolidation agency

Fireside Bank (Car Loan) CL: 15,596 balance: 12,152

PG&E Utility Bill/ Collection/ Balance 487; Previously 90 days late

Midland Collection- Paid in Full (Only reported by Equifax and Transunion)

Closed Accts:

Sears CC/ CL:1800 Balance: 1064 Opened:03/18/2002 Closed Acct Never Late

Paypal CC/ CL: 300 Balance: 0 Opened: 06/05/2005 Closed Acct Never Late

1st Bank CC/ CL: 400 balance: 0 Opened: 02/06/2001 Closed Acct Never Late

Associates CC/ CL: 500 Balance: 0 Opened: 08/1999 Closed Acct Never Late

Capital 1 CC/CL: 333 Balance:0 Opened 07/25/2005 Closed Acct Never Late

Emerge CC/ CL: 600 Balance: 0 Opened 04/16/2001 Closed Acct; Past due 30 days

Open Accts:

Capital One CC/ CL: 1050 Balance: 980 Opened: 03/17/2002 Open Acct Never Late

Express Store CC/ CL: 1050 Balance: 683 Opened: 11/19/1999 Open Acct Never Late

HSBC/Sony Store CC/ CL:1250 Balance: 588 Opened 05/10/2005 Open Acct Never Late

Nordstrom Store CC/ CL: 700 Balance: 499 Opened 11/28/1999 Open Acct Never Late

Macy's Store CC/ CL: 1,000 Balance: 403 Opened 01/10/2000 Open Acct Never Late

Target Store CC/ CL: 500 Balance: 329 Opened 12/20/2001 Open Acct Never Late

Gap Store CC/ CL: 400 Balance: 253 Opened 05/09/2005 Open Acct Never Late

Ikea Store CC/ CL: 300 Balance: 200 Opened 05/26/2006 Open Acct Never Late

Pacific Sunwear Store CC/ CL: 500 Balance: 146 Open Acct Never Late

HSBC CC/ CL: 400 Balance: 63 Open Acct Never Late

Victoria's Secret Store CC/ CL: 450 Balance: 0 Open Acct; Past due 30 days

Re: Credit Card question

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:04:30 GMT

Probably not six months...but at least get you to a 630. Those 30 days might be holding you back from a dramatic increase. I'll let the experts step in and give you specifics. That's my two cents.

Re: Credit Card question

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:04:38 GMT

Open credit cards: How much money can you throw at them right away? The ideal is to have none of them reporting over 10%, and at any given time, only let half or fewer report even that. The rest should be PIF'd (paid in full.) The easiest way to figure your target figure is to knock the last zero off each credit limit, and keep the reporting balance under that. So for instance, the CL on the Express card is $1050. Knock the last zero off to find 10% --> $105. Have less than that report.

If you can't whump them all down immediately, get all of them under 50%, and then start working on getting no more than half under 10% and the other rest PIF's. It will be simplest to have your small cards PIF'd --you can knock off more cards with the same amount of money, and it can really be hard to let 9% of a tiny CL report!

Send a GW (goodwill) letter to Victoria's Secret, asking if they would be willing to remove your 30-day late. WFN Bank is the bank behind this card. Type GW in the search box for ideas. There is also a thread on this in Frequently Requested Threads.

Closed credit cards: Is there still a balance on the closed Sears card? If so, you can PFD (pay for delete.) In essence, you and Citi (the bank behind Sears) cut a deal that you will pay them part or all of the balance due in exchange for them deleting either the reporting of the late or deleting that TL (tradeline) entirely. There's sort of a little dance you go through with this, so type PFD letter in the search box at the top left to see how it works. Make sure that when Citi accepts your offer, they send it in writing on company letterhead. You have plenty of other TL's, and this card isn't your oldest, so it shouldn't hurt to delete it. However, read through all the advice carefully. You don't want to re-awaken a sleeping monster.

I don't know if you should try to get the collection to go away. You didn't say how old it is, and you don't want it to suddenly pop up on EX! Someone on these forums who has experience fighting collection agency dragons would be the one to ask.

The other late payments: in general, if you owe anything, PFD, if you don't, GW. I had always heard that it's impossible to GW off lates on student loans, but posters have reported success lately. Type student loan in the search box. (By the way, SL = student loan. Every now and then I see "SL" and draw a complete blank!)

How old are the lates? It's never good to have lates (tell me about it), but if they are only 30-days and over 2 years old, they aren't doing nearly as much damage. The 60- and 90-days hurt a lot more, so if you can get them gone, that will help.

I would think that you would get a nice goose to your scores just from paying down or off the current cards. Without knowing how old the lates are, it would be hard to guess how much and how soon you could hit 680. I'm guessing it will take some fierce determination and lots of letter-writing on your part. Good luck!

Re: Credit Card question

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:07:10 GMT

* bump *

Other posters, can you please take a look at what I posted about PFD's and about the collection? Once I'm out of my happy little 1-9% how-to, I'm a bit over my head! thanks

Re: Credit Card question

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:17:52 GMT

Hi asyiasmami. I agree with hauling. Pay as much on your open credit card balance right now, as much as you can comfortably do so. Your high utilization is really hurting you. And at the same time, start work on that closed Sear's account with a balance.

All total, your total credit limits of all your cc's = 7,600. Your total balances are 4,498. That gives you a utilization factor of 59.2%. You will see your scores improve with each incremental drop in utilization, with the prime target of 1%-10%.

In my opinion, the quickest thing you can do to improve your scores is to pay down those cc balances.

Case in point: in March 2007 I had a Transunion score of 521. I stopped using ALL my credit cards totally at that point. I paid ONLY cash and check. I withdrew money from savings, and paid down the balances. I did not use the cards at all for 4 months, while paying on the cc's.

In July, 2007 my scores had increased to 671 on TU. And in March,2007 I had a total of 34 lates on my credit report from all my cc's combined. Today it stands at 27.

I hope that helps a little. Good luck to you.

Message Edited by Sylviatob on 11-15-2007 10:17 AM

Re: Credit Card question

future — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:28:47 GMT

You should have no prob reaching your 6 mont goal- you can start by goodwilling your student loans, to have the lates removed. Are all the closed acc in collections or some of them. now as for your open acc if you happen to hav some extra cash around, then pay some of your acc down. you will see some type of jump from this action. good luck

Message Edited by future on 11-15-2007 10:28 AM

Re: Credit Card question

future — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:39:40 GMT

wat are your scores. if you can pay down cap 1, ikea, target, gap, then express, and sony, they appear to have the highest uti, you will see a jump, also try goodwilling vs

Message Edited by future on 11-15-2007 10:39 AM

Re: Credit Card question

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:22:01 GMT

Hey everyone. Thanks for the wealth of info! This has helped tremendously! FYI, the Sears account doesn't have any lates on it, its just one of my older closed accounts. As for the Midland collection, it is about 1 year old showing paid in full. If I pay off the PGE collection, because as of right now it states a balance of $487 would it make a difference?

Also, I wanted to pull my reports from Transunion and Experian to see the accuracy and dispute items because my recent 3 in 1 report that was pulled by the Mortgage company includes items that have long ago been deleted. I have my Equifax report which I pulled fm myfico.com showing the inaccuracies.

Thanks again, I will keep you guys posted!!!!

Re: Credit Card question

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:33:18 GMT

If you don't mind me asking how come you want a 680 score in six months? Looking to purchase a house or condo or something like that? If so I would bring your report to a lender and have them look it over. That is ALOT of credit cards, I mean alot that are still open. Especially those nasty store cards. They may get a littly antsy seeing all those charge accounts.