topic Re: Credit Gardening in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Credit Gardening

Anonymous — Fri, 14 May 2010 17:49:31 GMT

Hello All,

Thanks to the help of many on this board, I went from lower 500's to high 600's credit score, in what is now a year. Oh, yeah, and the bigger thing is I

became a homeowner in November!!!

Now, I want to take care of my credit and be in the mid 700's by the end of this year but dont know how.

Currently my report shows 22 accounts, with 11 open with a 14% credit useage.

I have 2 lates from 2008, 2 30 day and 1 60 day.

My Equifax is 6890 and TU is 698.

I guess I dont know what to do now, besides pay down the card to 9% or less?

Last month it was at 54% and I paid it down to the 14% but only saw a 20 point increase.

I also thought that closing or opening new accounts would decrease my score, but I am wondering if having 11 open accounts looked at as "too much"?

How do I boost my score?

Re: Credit Gardening

lkcrew426 — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:18:30 GMT

How many of your accounts are reporting a balance? If several of them are, paying those completely off and only letting one or two report may help you.

Closing accouts won't hurt your score provided they are payed off before closing, but opening new accounts probably will. When your mortgage hits one year, you should see a boost.

Re: Credit Gardening

Anonymous — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:27:00 GMT

Only 2 are showing a balance.

I forgot to include I have one utility collection from 2005. It is paid.

Should I close the "newer" credit cards first?

I had a few older cards (1997) that were closed (before I found this board), due to inactivity.

Re: Credit Gardening

MarineVietVet — Fri, 14 May 2010 23:02:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hello All,
Thanks to the help of many on this board, I went from lower 500's to high 600's credit score, in what is now a year. Oh, yeah, and the bigger thing is I
became a homeowner in November!!! Congratulations on the new house.

Now, I want to take care of my credit and be in the mid 700's by the end of this year but dont know how.
Currently my report shows 22 accounts, (I have 36) with 11 open with a 14% credit useage.
I have 2 lates from 2008, 2 30 day and 1 60 day. The 30 day lates are starting to lose some impact but you should try to get all of them GW'ed. I'd also try and get that paid collection removed.
My Equifax is 6890 and TU is 698.
I guess I dont know what to do now, besides pay down the card to 9% or less?

Optimal credit utilization for FICO scoring purposes seems to be:
Total revolving and individual utilization > 0 and < 9%, the lower the better, and
Reporting a balance on less than half of your revolving TL's, and
Reporting a balance on half or less of all TL's.

Last month it was at 54% and I paid it down to the 14% but only saw a 20 point increase. 20 points is something to be proud of.

I also thought that closing or opening new accounts would decrease my score, but I am wondering if having 11 open accounts looked at as "too much"? Unless some of those CC's have loan shark type annual fees I see no reason to close them. Use them from time to time for activity and let them age.

How do I boost my score? The title of your thread is a good strategy. Keep paying everything on time, keep utilization low, don't apply for credit you don't need, try to get those lates and that collection removed early, and let everything age. Let time work for you.

From a BK years ago to:

9/09 EX pulled by lender 802
3/10 EQ- 800
4/10 TU -772

You can do the same thing with hard work

Credit Scoring 101
Common Abbreviations
Frequently Requested Threads
Whats In Your FICO Score

Re: Credit Gardening

Anonymous — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:48:55 GMT

GW stands for? Thanks.

It's easy to get your score to increase. Pay down debt so you have low single digit utilization, close newer cards to help drive up the average age, especially if they have low credit lines. I got cards from Macy's, HomeRepo and Travelocity last year, all with low credit lines. Cancelled all of them. Score went up a good bit, but can't make up for the hard inquiries. If you have any late payments/settlements, look to see if the agency is still reporting the lateness. I bought a timeshare years ago, the company reneged on free visits, so I stopped paying (hoping to get a settlement). Account was sent to collections, it was paid off in late 2005, but they had kept reporting 120 days late up until May 2008. Disputed that once a couple of months ago, and got a response that it was being reported correctly. Disputed it again a couple of weeks ago, and the account has dropped off two of the three agencies. One plus score has gone up from 658 to 706 in two months. MyFico for TU just went up 24 points from 4/28. If you are divorced, get off of authorized user account status, especially if the credit line has a high utilization. it hurts more than it helps with respect to how much credit you have. Definitely check out creditkarma every day for an update.

Re: Credit Gardening

MarineVietVet — Sat, 15 May 2010 01:53:18 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
GW stands for? Thanks.

It's easy to get your score to increase. Pay down debt so you have low single digit utilization, close newer cards to help drive up the average age, especially if they have low credit lines. I got cards from Macy's, HomeRepo and Travelocity last year, all with low credit lines. Cancelled all of them. Score went up a good bit, but can't make up for the hard inquiries. If you have any late payments/settlements, look to see if the agency is still reporting the lateness. I bought a timeshare years ago, the company reneged on free visits, so I stopped paying (hoping to get a settlement). Account was sent to collections, it was paid off in late 2005, but they had kept reporting 120 days late up until May 2008. Disputed that once a couple of months ago, and got a response that it was being reported correctly. Disputed it again a couple of weeks ago, and the account has dropped off two of the three agencies. One plus score has gone up from 658 to 706 in two months. MyFico for TU just went up 24 points from 4/28. If you are divorced, get off of authorized user account status, especially if the credit line has a high utilization. it hurts more than it helps with respect to how much credit you have. Definitely check out creditkarma every day for an update.

GW=Good Will. Here is a list of Abbreviations.

Closing cards will not affect your AAoA or credit length history at all. Closed accounts in good standing will continue showing on your reports for up to 10 years after closing. Here is a good thread about the pros and cons of Closing Credit Cards.

Re: Credit Gardening

Anonymous — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:15:41 GMT

I saw my score creep (up) by closing three low-aged cards obtained last summer. CreditKarma also shows an increase in the average age, with a correpsonding increase in score as well.

Re: Credit Gardening

MarineVietVet — Sat, 15 May 2010 04:53:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I saw my score creep (up) by closing three low-aged cards obtained last summer. CreditKarma also shows an increase in the average age, with a correpsonding increase in score as well.

This was all coincidence. Your scores changed for some other reason. Closing those accounts did not remove them from your reports and therefore will not increase your AAoA.

Your AAoA is the sum of the ages of every account on your report, whether open or closed, calculated in months, divided by the number of accounts and then divided by 12. I use the division by 12 to make it easier to convert into years. This is measured from the time each account was opened until present.

If you stick around and read many, many posts you will see what I'm talking about.

Re: Credit Gardening

smallfry — Sat, 15 May 2010 15:30:24 GMT

Get the utilization under 9% and do not apply for anything. Those lates are gonna weigh on your score until they are off. Mid 700's is possible but...

Re: Credit Gardening

RobertEG — Sun, 16 May 2010 02:32:23 GMT

The last thing I would worry about now is monthly % util. That is the one, single category of FICO scoring that has no historical "memory."

It only takes one month in the future to reduce your % util. Keep current and that wont hurt much.

You say you have two 30-day lates, and one 60-day late from 2008. That would be my focus. Has the debt that resulted in these lates now been satisfied (are they paid?). If not, you may see future serious damage in the way of a future CO or CA reported on the debt. If they are paid, then put your time into GW deletion of those derogs. They are the major killers to your score now, as I see it.

Re: Credit Gardening

Anonymous — Mon, 17 May 2010 13:20:10 GMT

Thank you all for your advice.

Yes, the late accounts have been satisfied. I tried to goodwill them plenty times before but was ignored month after month, after month.

I guess this is a new year, so I can give them a new try!

Oh, and I have a Captial 1 card(10 years old), which the APR is high, but I dont carry a balance on that one, but am charged about $6.00 every month for ?? I cant

remember now, but almost like a maintenance fee.

Also, Merrick Bank has my highest limit and that is what I carry the balance on but the APR is ridiculous!

That card is about 7 years old so I didnt want to cancel.

Re: Credit Gardening

BungalowMo — Mon, 17 May 2010 15:15:55 GMT

MrsQ...I'd had some similar issues with my reports (scores hanging around 670 to 685). No matter what I did, that's where they stayed. Then I got the collection dropped off! TU went up past 700!! Even tho the collection only had about 4 mo's til it dropped, I GW'd & got it dropped early. That is the one thing that took me past 700!

Who's the CA?????

Re: Credit Gardening

TiggerDat — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:52:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you all for your advice.
Yes, the late accounts have been satisfied. I tried to goodwill them plenty times before but was ignored month after month, after month.
I guess this is a new year, so I can give them a new try!

Oh, and I have a Captial 1 card(10 years old), which the APR is high, but I dont carry a balance on that one, but am charged about $6.00 every month for ?? I cant
remember now, but almost like a maintenance fee.
Also, Merrick Bank has my highest limit and that is what I carry the balance on but the APR is ridiculous!
That card is about 7 years old so I didnt want to cancel.

Call Capone and ask they change the account terms, they refer to it as offers for the account. Make sure that you ask if there are any other offers than what they first mention. They offered me a reduction to my interest rate and after saying yes I commented that the interest rate reduction was silly. I do not carry a balance, so the reduction was whatever. I did it so that maybe in the future they would offer me something better. The CSR then made a statement that effectively was that there was a different offer, but since I took the other it was no longer available to me. I asked what that offer was and she said it was about rewards. She then made it seem like the rewards that I would have been offered were less than what I have. I have the lowest rewards with them, so how can it be lower?

I would keep the Merrick Bank account and call their office and see what they can do for you. I have a secured card with them. Their phone number is 8015456600. You will get an operator and you must ask for the credit department. You must make sure you tell them you do not want the call center! I have had the card for about 5 years and they don't give back security funds. I think if enough of us call who have been long term customers with them, they might alter some of their policies. One would think after 5 years, they would realize I am not going to default or abuse my account. I would even take a reduction in my limit to account for the security funds being returned or interest on it. Even at 3% I would have earned $150 by now. It does take customers directly talking with the individuals who can pass suggestions on to them for them to consider changing things. (It is best if it comes from good consumers, so if you are abusing your account it won't help as much as those of us who are doing well.)

I don't want to cancel my card with them either. They have been fantastic with me. I just wish they would work with me a little better. My interest rate with them is 17.4%, which for them is probably low. I pay $3 a month, actually I pay $5 a month since I have 2 authorized buyers on the account, so basically $3. (I am helping my sisters out with their credit, one uses the Merrick and the other uses a Capone card.)

Cancelling cards will impact your score a bit, but it will still report positively to the bureaus.

Re: Credit Gardening

MarineVietVet — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:27:08 GMT

Just so you know MrsQ hasn't been back online in almost a year.

Re: Credit Gardening

TiggerDat — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:51:13 GMT

Yeah I forget to check things like that.