The New World Man wrote:
LOL!
All I did is have less than $1000 in charge-offs OVER TWO YEARS AGO and they've got me at 575 FICO FOR LIFE!
Goes to show what a sham the whole FICO system is...
I've read several posts on this site over the last week before I've posted myself. Some of your posts, in particular, have made me chuckle although I know you're probably not intentionally trying to be funny and I'm definitely not laughing at your pain - simply some of your comments.
I just wanted to say that it's not all that bad. I had 3 charge offs almost 7 years ago. Since then, I've just never really cared about credit scores, credit cards, etc., because I never could get credit after that. I was young and stupid and just resolved to paying everything in cash for what I thought was going to be the rest of my life. I was never taught anything about credit. My parents just preached that it isn't responsible to default on debts from anyone and my grandfather preaching that 'If you can't pay in cash, then you don't need it anyway.' I have NEVER known what my credit score is/was until last week. I just know that I bought a car last August and had a somewhat difficult time getting the loan because of my poor credit. Now I want to buy a home and am learning about all of the FICO stuff for the first time ever. I can already tell this whole process (not just FICO scores) is going to be a bit of a headache. However, even with one of the charge-offs still showing on my report and no other credit other than my car payment which has been made faithfully (because I'm much older and more responsible now), my credit score ranges are 599, 601 and 710. That is with having horrible credit when I got my car and simply making the payment before it's due from day one.
That tells me that you just have to be patient and pay whatever lines of credit you do have ON TIME. Since I've gotten access to my credit scores, I want to see a change every hour and if I give into that I know I'll drive myself crazy. I think I'm simply going to continue to do what I've been doing and just check everything once every 6 weeks. I recently got financing for a personal purchase and will pay that as I have my car payment and leave the rest to the gods that be. That has seemed to work so far, knock on wood. I can't actually purchase a home for another 7 months to a year regardless, therefore, I see no point in obsessing over it. I'm just trying to get advice on what I can do to bring the scores up even more without losing my mind in the process.
I know my scores aren't much to brag about but, afterall, I thought I was in the bottom 1% when I recently started my credit spring cleaning so it was a pleasant suprise. I don't know how or why I'm not where I thought I would be but I'm certainly not going to complain because it's not bad for someone who hasn't even seen her credit report in 6 years much less tried to rectify it.