800 club, mostly...

[Anonymous]

Bobski, sorry for the dumb question, but whar is GWed??? Thanks TomC

[Anonymous]

My Transunion FICO score (high 700's) is consistently lower than Equifax and Experian (both in the low 800's).  I use my three credit cards exclusively in lieu of cash to take advantage of the points offered by the credit card issuers, and I pay all credit cards IN FULL each month. Tranunion seems to be bothered by what they consider to be high balances when they take their snapshot of my balances each month, but they give me no credit for paying off the balances IN FULL each month. The Transunion standard statement is, "the balances on your non-mortgage credit accounts are too high" and  "Most FICO High Achievers carry a total balance of less than $1200 on non-mortgage accounts", Their advice is to "pay off current debts and maintain low balances". I pay off my current debts IN FULL each month but Transunion has yet to develop a system which recognizes that fact. Maybe someday they will figure it out! 

[Anonymous]

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TomC wrote: Bobski, sorry for the dumb question, but whar is GWed??? Thanks TomC

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No such thing as a dumn question... "GW" refers to "good will" which is what it's called when you send a letter to a credit asking them to remove a valid/accurate negative item from your credit report (you're asking them to do this for you as a gesture of "good will" to keep you happy as a customer). This is different from a "dispute", where you are trying to removing an incorrect item from your credit report. There are many good examples of "good will" letters on these forums. You should be able to find them by searching for GW, "good will" or "goodwill".

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My Transunion FICO score (high 700's) is consistently lower than Equifax and Experian (both in the low 800's). I use my three credit cards exclusively in lieu of cash to take advantage of the points offered by the credit card issuers, and I pay all credit cards IN FULL each month. Tranunion seems to be bothered by what they consider to be high balances when they take their snapshot of my balances each month, but they give me no credit for paying off the balances IN FULL each month. The Transunion standard statement is, "the balances on your non-mortgage credit accounts are too high" and "Most FICO High Achievers carry a total balance of less than $1200 on non-mortgage accounts", Their advice is to "pay off current debts and maintain low balances". I pay off my current debts IN FULL each month but Transunion has yet to develop a system which recognizes that fact. Maybe someday they will figure it out!

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Poppy, if you really want to raise your TU score, you may benefit from signing up for on-line credit card account access, and then monitor your account and pay the balance down to an acceptable level (under $1000, maybe) *before* the "statement closing date", then pay in full the remaining balance when you receive your statement. That way, your statement balance will be lower, which is the balance usually reported to the credit bureaus.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply BobSki. I have never heard of these GW letters, and will try it. TomC

[handymom]

That's GREAT, Bob! Makes me all excited.....my score is in the upper 600's and I'm hankering to get it above 700 - but 800?!?! Wow....excellent! hmmmmm.....just wish I knew your particulars: how much debt did you have, how much did you pay down in such a short time, etc. Sure would help in trying to figure out how long it might be before I reach those giddy heights. :-) Congrats! Laurie

[Anonymous]

Congrats and welcome to the club!!!

7/14/2008 - TU 806; EQ 809; EX 826

Danielle

[Anonymous]

Hmm... My peak debt was several years ago (mid '04), I think I had around $25k in credit card debt and was a little more that half way done with my $25k car loan (maybe $12k left).

It wasn't until about 2 years ago, though, that I started really concentrating on paying my debt down. At that point, I probably had about $20k in credit card debt and maybe $5k left on my car payment. I organized by credit card debt and came up with a pay-down plan. I committed myself to a "snowball" paydown method where I would always pay a minimum amount each month (the minimum payment on each account plus some extra) plus whatever extra I could afford toward my current "target" account. I chose the account with the highest interest rate to always be my target - some people chose the account with the smallest balance to get to a "paid off" account as soon as possible. Even after accounts started being paid off in full (first my car payment, then one credit card at a time), I kept my total monthly payments the same (taking the minimum and extra that I was paying to the account that got paid off and lumping it in as "extra" toward the new "target" account).

At some point, I shifted my strategy a bit from what made the most financial sense (paying off the highest interest first) to a "hybrid" strategy that took into account some FICO scoring factors (like trying to get all accounts below 50% utilization, even if it meant paying off a lower-interest CC before a higher-interest CC). This was mostly for "fun" since my FICO score didn't really matter during this time, but it helped to keep me motivated and was educational.

As of today, I'm about 2 months from being debt free. I would have been debt free a few months ago, but I bailed my girlfriend out of a financial mess she was in. Ahh... the price of love. Also, I decided to put $3k in a savings account for an "emergency fund" about a year ago and contribute much more to my retirement savings, even though I hadn't finished paying off my credit card debt, so in effect I've been "net" debt free for a few months already. Being truly debt free will be so nice, though. Then it's on to building up my emergency fund and down payment savings. I'm going to try to keep the same discipline in saving that I've had in paying down debt. That will be in interesting challenge.

I hope that answers your questions.