topic Re: quickest way of improving my credit score in Rebuilding Your Credit

quickest way of improving my credit score

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:34:06 GMT

My credit score is around 590. I want to improve it asap.

I have three credit cards with a balance of

Capital one- 549

Express-580

Capital One- 148

Should I pay off capital one with 148 balance? Or use the 150 to pay off the other ones? thank you

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

denver133 — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:38:19 GMT

What's the CLI on each card?

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

denver133 — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:38:56 GMT

Sorry. CL.

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

DaBears — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:44:07 GMT

What is the credit lines of the cards? Keep all but one card between 1-9% UTIL will give you the fastest score bump it also depends what else is on your credit reports. CO's? Collections?

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

DrJim — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:44:50 GMT

Pay them all off. I would start with the lowest balance and work my way to the highest. With a 590 there are other issues on your CR. If you share them with us I am sure you will receive plenty of help. At this level leaving a small balance on one account won't help much.

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

DaBears — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:50:51 GMT

Fico doesn't like to see all cards at a $0 bal. It will look like the cards are not being used.Fico has no memory, just a snap shot of each month the cards are reported.

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:50:59 GMT

Without knowing what your credit limits on each of those cards, it would be hard to determine your utilization percentage (UTL). The ideal UTL is between one and nine percent. Basically, carry forward a zero balance on all cards with the exception of a small balance on one card. For most people (myself included), this is hard to do. Most of us are works in progress.

I believe UTL is calculated per card so paying off the one card would help. I would consider putting the money toward the card with the highest interest rate. This will help ensure you aren't paying as much in interest on your next statement. This will save you money as well.

Also, I imagine there are some negative items on your credit report. Have you pulled your free annual reports? If not, I would suggest you do that first (Annual Credit Report website). Look over the reports and find anything that may be inaccurate. If there are inaccuracies, then contact the creditors to fix those errors. If there are COs and/or collections, then you should send PFD for those that are not paid and GW letters for the ones that are paid. This will be help improve your score. There are great example of these types of letters in the stickies at the top of this forum.

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:52:14 GMT

@DaBears wrote:
Fico doesn't like to see all cards at a $0 bal. It will look like the cards are not being used.Fico has no memory, just a snap shot of each month the cards are reported.

You all are just faster typers than I am...

Re: quickest way of improving my credit score

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 17:15:20 GMT

capital one with 148 balance has 500 CL

The other capital one card CL is 750

Express CL is 1,200

I have had 3 cards go to collection but paid it in full. I currently have nothing in collection