Confused about FICO

[Anonymous]

I had a terrible payment record for years and 2 small collections. 3 1/2 years ago I reviewed all 3 reports and cleaned them up the best I deserved and stopped making late payments. Even though I have been clean since then, my score has stayed between 545-590. I just recently received a very large bonus and paid off almost all my debt. 2 very low balance cc's are at 50%, 1 high balance cc is at 25%, 1 VERY high balance line of credit is below 10% and I have 7 payments left on my car. With all the other debt gone, I estimate I will be debt free by the end of the year. My questions: How fast will my FICO score improve? And my son will be starting college in the fall. I am on an interest free 10 month pay plan with the University. Does anyone know if that will be reported to the CRAs? Is there anything else I can do except wait out the next 3 1/2 years?

[Anonymous]

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red wrote:
I had a terrible payment record for years and 2 small collections. 3 1/2 years ago I reviewed all 3 reports and cleaned them up the best I deserved and stopped making late payments. Even though I have been clean since then, my score has stayed between 545-590. I just recently received a very large bonus and paid off almost all my debt. 2 very low balance cc's are at 50%, 1 high balance cc is at 25%, 1 VERY high balance line of credit is below 10% and I have 7 payments left on my car. With all the other debt gone, I estimate I will be debt free by the end of the year. My questions: How fast will my FICO score improve? And my son will be starting college in the fall. I am on an interest free 10 month pay plan with the University. Does anyone know if that will be reported to the CRAs? Is there anything else I can do except wait out the next 3 1/2 years?

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The best thing to do is to sontinue to maintain an excellent payment history.  You may want to try reducing the 50% blances to below 10% as well. Pay them off anf then use one card and keep utilization low only bring out the others occasionally and PIF.  FICO will consider past payment history, it also takes into account individual cards with high utilization

[Anonymous]

red,

Are the collections paid or unpaid, and what is the SOL?

http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/statuteLimitations.shtml

[Anonymous]

Hey Brammy ! I noticed that you mentioned that the score module takes into consideration of the utilization on individual cards.  I was just having a dilema about that matter yesterday. I have 26% utilization for my CC's as a whole.  One card is a little over 60%. Im going to pay that card down to under 10%. I was under the impression that the score was determined by each card as an individual and as well as a whole, and I truely believe that! BUT when I was reviewing my fico report it stated that I was making heavy use my available credit. I was in shock as like I said earlier I'am only using 26% total.

Then I went on to read that the score modle doesn't take individual utilization into account, it scores it by the overall utilization.  Very confusing !

[Anonymous]

One was paid 3 1/2 years ago. It was an old bounced check. The other was paid about 2 years ago and was a dispute on a medical bill. As soon as I realized it had been reported on my credit report, I paid it....jerks!

[Anonymous]

What are the DOFDs? If you don't know, what's your best guess?

[Anonymous]

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jdeezy wrote:

Hey Brammy ! I noticed that you mentioned that the score module takes into consideration of the utilization on individual cards.  I was just having a dilema about that matter yesterday. I have 26% utilization for my CC's as a whole.  One card is a little over 60%. Im going to pay that card down to under 10%. I was under the impression that the score was determined by each card as an individual and as well as a whole, and I truely believe that! BUT when I was reviewing my fico report it stated that I was making heavy use my available credit. I was in shock as like I said earlier I'am only using 26% total.

Then I went on to read that the score modle doesn't take individual utilization into account, it scores it by the overall utilization.  Very confusing !

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Yes Barry mentioned he would bring that to the attention of the writers in this thread

http://fico.lithium.com/fico/board/message?board.id=ficoscoring&thread.id=1500&view=by_date_ascendin...

Fico DOES take into consideration utilization one an individualy cards.  So even if overall use is under 30% but individual cards are high util.  It still factors into the scoring

Message Edited by Brammy on 05-06-2007 07:37 AM

[Anonymous]

The bounced check is 7/02 and the med bill is 3/05.

[Anonymous]

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red wrote:
The bounced check is 7/02 and the med bill is 3/05.

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You will probably have to wait it out but I'd be grateful for that.  In my state, they will actually put you in jail for a 7.00 bounced check and not bother with collection agencies.  Seriously.  Here NSF is not only bad for your bank account but a criminal offense and most merchants will issue a warrant for your arrest rather than turn it over to collections they're guaratneed to get their money then.  It actually happened to me a few years back.  Merchant didn't present a check for months in the meantime I'd moved and changed banks.  Never got notification the check was returned the next thing I knew the sherrifs department was at my dorr.  A 7.00 check to Payless shoes that I didn't even realize hadn't been cashed.  Luckily I took it to court and the judge only made me pay the amount of the check since they waited over 90 days to cash it and I never received notification.  Otherwise, I would have had to pay that, returnd check fees, collection fee and court cost.

[Anonymous]

My bounced check was to a fireworks stand. It bounced once and 6 months later I changed bank accounts. They never tried to cash it twice and I had no way of contacting them. I found it on my credit report 2 years later when I started trying to clean up my credit. The collection agency never tried to contact me.