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How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been paid

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Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai


@AnonymousThe 650 credit score was provided by a company called CreditCheck provided by Experian. It was free through my bank. I have no installment debt and all debt paid off was credit card debt. TransUnion lists my Fico 8 score at 680. All score 8 ingredients (Payment History, Length of Credit History, Credit Mix, and Amount of New Credit) were listed as exceptional, except Amount of Debt was listed as Fair. I do not have a mortgage so that is a negative. Thanks for the heads up. I guess in 30 days my score should begin to change, hopefully in the right direction.

You need to find out if that 650 score from EX is a FICO score or not.  Go to the screen where you see that score and look all over for something that indicates if it's FICO or not.  This may be near the score, or may be in fine print below the score or at the bottom of the page.  It may also be in a FAQ about their product.  If it's a FICO score, it's meaningful and worth you checking.  If it's not, run for the hills and only use that TU FICO 8 score from TU for now.

 

How are your age of accounts factors in terms of length?

 

Keep in mind that all of those categories where the monitoring software tells you that you fall into certain ranges like exceptional, fair, etc. are just there for fluff.  While they can usually be worthwhile, some of this fluff software doesn't take into account the same exact things that the FICO algorithm does.  For example, Credit Karma only takes into consideration your payment history for the last 2 years.  Their fluff software will tell you that you have 100% exceptional payment history if your last 2 years are clean, but 2.5-3.5 years ago your credit report is littered and filthy with late payments.  FICO scoring would murder you for these late payments, but CK's pretty fluff software paints a [wrongly] perfect picture regarding payment history to this person.

 

Have you pulled your actual credit reports and gone through them to verify that everything looks right and that there are no negative items?

 

Where does your utilization currently sit percentage wise?  I would think with most fluff software that says it's "fair" you're probably in the 30's or 40's?  That being said, a 680 score is a little on the low end for someone with that type of utilization if there are absolutely no negative items present. 

Message 11 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

Hey Carlsbadbythesea!  My comments in blue below.

 


@Anonymous wrote:

The 650 credit score was provided by a company called CreditCheck provided by Experian. It was free through my bank.

 

Weird.  I just googled CreditCheck and couldn't find anything.  I entered creditCheck.com as a URL and it took me to this site.  Does that look familiar?

 

https://www.freecreditcheck.com/us/6019/383b11a/DNBX/020/lp/020-a87c/?sid=AFFSUB005018Z&id=3426&ord=1&append=1&edata=AFFID&c=MzQyNiA1NDI0MjU1ODkgMTcgNjAgMSAxNzkxNTcxNTUxIDA0MjQyMDE4MTIzNjMz

 

I have no installment debt and all debt paid off was credit card debt.

 

We can suggest a strategy for improving your FICO 8 score by about 30 points called the Share Secured Loan Technique To learn more all you need to do is read the first three posts in that thread..

 

TransUnion lists my Fico 8 score at 680.

 

There are lots of ways to get a TransUnion FICO 8 score.  Can you tell us more about the specific tool you are using to get that score?

 

An alternative tool you might want to check out is the $1 trial offer at Credit Check Total.  It will give you a 3B report and all three FICO 8 scores.  Personally I would wait until all your cards are reporting the ultra low balances (and you can use Karma to confirm that).  Actually, to get every extra scoring possible, you want to have all cards at zero except one (AZEO).

 

All score 8 ingredients (Payment History, Length of Credit History, Credit Mix, and Amount of New Credit) were listed as exceptional, except Amount of Debt was listed as Fair. I do not have a mortgage so that is a negative.

 

The word "negative" is used pretty specifically in the credit reporting world to mean a late, collection, chargeoff, lien, judgment, public record, or bankruptcy.  Lack of a particular kind of account is not a negative, though I understood what I think you meant which was: FICO gives me a penalty for not having a mortgage.

 

That's a common belief, but actually many people have shown that it is possible to have a perfect 850 FICO 8 score with no mortgage.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I guess in 30 days my score should begin to change, hopefully in the right direction.


I really like what BBS said early about checking for absolute certain that you have no negatives, not even a stray late from a while ago.  The best way to be sure is to pull all three reports from annualCreditReport.com, print them out, and then go through them slowly with an eagle eye and circle anything that looks weird, especially if it could be one of the those negatives I mentioned earlier.

 

Message 12 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

TransUnion says the Length of Credit History goes back 27 years with the oldest at 39 years. It is nice to say in all that time I do not have any recorded late payments, collections or derogatory public records. My utilization of available credit is 51% which is pretty high. Credit Check calls the 650 a credit score not a FICO score. To get a FICO score, credit report and other features I can upgrade the account for $7.95 per month.

Message 13 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

You are very likely to be right that none of your three reports has a single late or other negative on it.  You should not base that on memory, however, or even what actually truly happened.  All that matters is what is on your three reports.  It is quite possible that an error was made and you have a false negative item on your reports.

 

The only way to be certain is to pull all three reports at AnnualCreditReport.com, print them out, and slowly go throw them with a red pen like I mentioned earlier.  ACR is free.  If you have a long credit history and have not pulled your three ACR reports in a long time, you definitely need to do that.

 

I also notice that you mention TransUnion a lot and not the other two so much.  You need tools to see all three reports and all three FICO 8 scores on a fairly regular basis.

 

One such tool is creditscore.com -- which will give you a free Experian report and its FICO 8 score.  It is free.

Message 14 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

You are right. I have not looked at my credit report in a very long time. As you recommended I will pull all three reports and go through them with a fine tooth comb. To get into Credit Check if I must be inside of my banks website. I appreciate all your insight. It helps to bounce these questions off of someone in the know.

Message 15 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai


@Anonymous

TransUnion says the Length of Credit History goes back 27 years with the oldest at 39 years.


I'm a little confused about this statement above.  AoOA (Age of Oldest Account) is the age of the oldest account present, open or closed, on your credit report.  I'm not sure if that number for you from the above statement is 27 years or 39 years.  I'm thinking 39 years is your AoOA and that's a closed account, where 27 years is the age of your oldest account that's still open.  Can you confirm if my assumption here is correct or incorrect?

 

Either way, you've got a very old file.  Anything > 17-20 years or so is top-notch for that part of score card assignment and scoring.  Having a very old AoOA also suggests that your AAoA (Average Age of Accounts) may be pretty high as well.  Do you have any idea what your AAoA is?

 

Based on what you've said regarding your age of accounts thus far, it's even more troublesome to me that you've got a 680 FICO score with 51% utilization.  I feel like if you took your utilization down to an ideal number (under 8.9%) your scores would only be in the mid 700's, where they should be 800+ based on the age of your file.  That being said, it strongly suggests the presence of some sort of negative information.  Perhaps it's very old and maybe not even major, but I feel like something is there.

 

CGID's suggestion to obtain and print out your hard-copy credit reports and go through them line by line is excellent.

Message 16 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

The exact way they explained it was, 27 yr 3 mo represents "Average Age of your Accounts" and the 39 yr 0 mo represents, "Age of Oldest Account" or time since your oldest account was opened. A thorough review of my three credit reports should shed more light on the matter.

Message 17 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

Wanted to give you the good news of the rebuilding of my FICO scores after paying off all my consumer debt. I subscribed to a Myfico service called FICO Ultimate 3B Monthly Reports for $39.95 a month. I was able to receive alerts when each lender reported a change to a loan balance and its affect to my scores. Yesterday I cancelled the service

 

Here is a summary:

Equifax beginning score 701, score as of 5-19-18, 787. This score does not yet reflect 2 loans already paid off.

TransUnion beginning score 682, score as of 5/18/18, 775. This score does not yet reflect 2 loans already paid off.

Experian beginning score 705, score as of 5/20/18, 843. This score reflects all debts paid off.

 

It is funny, I though that each credit reporting agency would know that I paid off a loan and would show the effects to my scores immediately. Each agency works at its own speed eventually all catching up to each other. The service USAA uses still shows my general FICO score at 650, as of 4/23/18. Any way I am happy with the results so far.

Message 18 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

Very nice improvements to your scores!

 

Your USAA score likely updates monthly on your account, so depending on the date it last updated it could be a couple of days up to 30 days before you see your new score on there.

Message 19 of 31
Anonymous
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Re: How long will it take for my FICO score to show improvement after all consumer debt has been pai

Ok here are the final updated scores after each agency reflected the payoff of all consumer debt.

 

Equifax new score 839, old score 701.

 

TransUnion new score 802, old score 682.

 

Experian new score 843, old score 705.

 

I am so happy with the results, now I will go out and buy my first new car in 14 years. Keeping these scores will require good financial management from this point on.

 

Message 20 of 31
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