help my score seems stuck

[Anonymous]

Hoping someone can offer some advice.  I have been working to rebuild my credit to buy a house in my near future.  I hadn't had any credit cards for a number of years after getting divorced and I had a number of medical collections due to a child with a chronic illness. All of my past collections have been paid and I have not had any late paymentsof any sort for at least 18months now. About 2yrs ago I got a Capital One secured card with a $300 limit and I also have an unsecured card through my credit union with a $500 limit and an Old Navy card with a $300 limit. I have never been late with any of these.  I have been using the cards and paying them off each month before their due date however on a couple of occasions now Capital One has reported a balancedue to the timing of when they report.  I contacted them to find out when they report to try to avoid this happening again but they were less than helpful. The response I got was "we report every 30-60 days but there is no way for us to tell you the approximate date we will report on."  The problem is that because the limit on this card is so low it doesn't take much for it to look like I am using over 30% .  I recently had a try merge done by a lender and my scores are TU 593  EQ 605 and EX 645.The only debt is approximately 18,000 in student loans which I am current on. I've been told that my debt to income ratio is great so the student loans aren't really having much of a negative impact on my score.  I seem to be stuck hovering in the low 600's and don't know what I can do to improve my score other than wait.  Someone suggested I apply for an unsecured card through Capital One or someone else to increase my available credit but I hate to apply and be declined.  I tried using the pre-qualification thing on Cap One's website and Citi's that say they don't affect your score to see my odds of getting approved but both said they couldn't match to a specific card but then suggested 4-6 cards including all of their rewards cards which I doubt I would be approved for.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated I am getting really frustrated.

[kogama]

Do you know anyone responsible and willing to add you as an authorized user? 

[Anonymous]

1.  If there's anything you can do about derogatories, such as goodwill letters, I'd do so.

2.  I would suggest trying to optimize your utilization according to the approach found in many postings here -- only let one of your CCs report a small balance, with the others at $0.  This approach is distinct from paying by the due date and thus avoiding interest.

[Barneygirl]

okay, I have a Cap1 card, and every month, like clockwork, they report on the same day of the month   Every month, on the 21st, I get an alert from MyFico score watch

I had a similar problem as you... pretty much no debt, and no credit to go with it    I opened up a "credit builder" loan with BMO for $1000 (no credit score required, but they will hard pull on your credit).  One that hit and I made two payments my score jumped by almost 20 points!   I also opened a Cap1 Platinum.  Original CL of $300... but six months payments and they auto-increased my CL to $1800. 

Since my problem was two-fold.... past baddies + poor mix of credit types, I started working to dispute the old stuff on my reports.  That actually helped the most!!!!  That, along with the CC and loan (above) helped me increase my score by almost 80 points in less than six months!!  (I was in the 570's when I first started all of this madness lol)

Now again, I seem to be "stuck"... hit a plateau again.  So, I took my butt down to BMO and "refinanced" the paid off Jeep lol.  Well, I took out a small loan against it, stuck the $$ in the bank, will make 6-12 payments on it and then pay it off.  The payments are auto deducted from the account with the loan $$ in it   We shall see what that does... but it at least rounds out my types of credit usage a little more.

[09Lexie]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hoping someone can offer some advice.  I have been working to rebuild my credit to buy a house in my near future.  I hadn't had any credit cards for a number of years after getting divorced and I had a number of medical collections due to a child with a chronic illness. All of my past collections have been paid and I have not had any late paymentsof any sort for at least 18months now. About 2yrs ago I got a Capital One secured card with a $300 limit and I also have an unsecured card through my credit union with a $500 limit and an Old Navy card with a $300 limit. I have never been late with any of these.  I have been using the cards and paying them off each month before their due date however on a couple of occasions now Capital One has reported a balancedue to the timing of when they report.  I contacted them to find out when they report to try to avoid this happening again but they were less than helpful. The response I got was "we report every 30-60 days but there is no way for us to tell you the approximate date we will report on."  The problem is that because the limit on this card is so low it doesn't take much for it to look like I am using over 30% .  I recently had a try merge done by a lender and my scores are TU 593  EQ 605 and EX 645.The only debt is approximately 18,000 in student loans which I am current on. I've been told that my debt to income ratio is great so the student loans aren't really having much of a negative impact on my score.  I seem to be stuck hovering in the low 600's and don't know what I can do to improve my score other than wait.  Someone suggested I apply for an unsecured card through Capital One or someone else to increase my available credit but I hate to apply and be declined.  I tried using the pre-qualification thing on Cap One's website and Citi's that say they don't affect your score to see my odds of getting approved but both said they couldn't match to a specific card but then suggested 4-6 cards including all of their rewards cards which I doubt I would be approved for.  Any suggestions would be much appreciated I am getting really frustrated.

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Are you looking to obtain a mortgage soon?

[Creditaddict]

1. Have you asked your Credit Union for a CLI?

2. Have you asked Old Navy for a CLI? (every 4 statements you should ask, it's a sp so won't effect your credit)

3. Check pre-qual for Chase and Discover too while you are at it.

[Anonymous]

I could probably ask one of my parents they both have exceptional credit but I would rather not, I would like the satisfaction of doing this entirely on my own.  Plus I have heard conflicting input on being an authorized user. 

[Anonymous]

The derogatories are all medical collections from the same agency, but each bill reported seperately so it was lots of little amounts.  they have all been paid and are reported as such but they will not delete.

[mongstradamus]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The derogatories are all medical collections from the same agency, but each bill reported seperately so it was lots of little amounts.  they have all been paid and are reported as such but they will not delete.

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if they didn't allow you do PFD and won't delete via GW letters, your only option may be to wait it out. I would also reconsider about getting added as an au on your parents account. If you don't trust yourself just have them add you, but just don't have card sent to you or something like that. You can start out that way to get started , when your credit is on solid ground then you can start getting your own cards and have your own credit history. 

[Anonymous]

Thank you to everyone for all of your advice,I'll try to respond to everyone's questions.   I have not asked Old Navy or myCredit Union for CLI the only place I did ask was Capital one but they do not honor requests for increase to my credit line on a secured card I would have to make an additional deposit which I really don't want to do since I am trying to save for a down payment and closing costs for a home I'd rather have my money in my regular savings account then tied up in a secured card. As far as disputing items off of my credit report the only items remaining as negatives are all valid paid medical collections all handled by one collection agency so I don't think there is much that I can do there.  Certainly open to suggestions if anyone has any but they pretty much follow their reporting by the letter of the law. They do not do pay for deletions.   My credit union does offer a credit builder loan, I had never really looked into it because they market it as something for someone who is unable to obtain a credit card and since I have a card through them in good standing I didn't even think of it as an option but it may be worth inquirying about.  

As far as the mortgage, yes I would like to get it asap.  I am currently renting a home from a family friend and she has offered to sell it to me at a very reasonable price and I would love to buy it.

As far as being added as an authorized user it is not that I don't trust myself I have no desire or temptation to go into debt. The only reason I have credit cards is to build my credit with the goal of getting a mortgage.  The mortgage lender I spoke to said the only real issue he sees that is keeping my score low is the past collections, (because some were just paid in the last year they reported more recently even though they went to collections years ago) and the other is that my available credit is so low and Cap one reported a balance on two occasions in the past year of over 30% even though it really wasn't a balance that was carried over.

I think that covers everyone.