Hello FICO forums, I have been an active member for a few months now but have been utilizing the forums for a couple of years now. It's been about a year since I've been researching heavily and rebuilding my credit due since I was a victim of credit fraud and just didn't fully understand credit cards in general. I am at a point now where I can see that my hard work is paying off and have increased my score FICO 8 and 9 scores by over 100 points in a year thanks to all of the helpful information on here provided by people who really want to see people succeed. Here are a couple of DP's about my current profile:
current FICO 8's: EX: 644, TU: 695, EQ: 684
current utilization: 45%
AAOA: 4 years and 3 months (will likely go down since I have just applied and received approval for 2 Amex cards)
Total credit line: $24,375
My question is a two part question. Should I pay my citi card in full and try to negotiate all derogatory data to be removed? My citi card was opened by a family member without my knowledge and after going through the fraud department they deemed that I had knowledge of the account. It currently has a balance of: $2,171 and shows a few late payments on the report. It only impacts my Experian report for total utilization but not my other two. On the other hand I have a USAA CC with a $1480 balance that I can either pay off immediately or in the next 1 month. I guess the bottom line is, should I even try to settle with citi bank or make the minimum monthly payments and pay it off at a later date?
Thanks very much for the advice!
@fsalsa2 wrote:Hello FICO forums, I have been an active member for a few months now but have been utilizing the forums for a couple of years now. It's been about a year since I've been researching heavily and rebuilding my credit due since I was a victim of credit fraud and just didn't fully understand credit cards in general. I am at a point now where I can see that my hard work is paying off and have increased my score FICO 8 and 9 scores by over 100 points in a year thanks to all of the helpful information on here provided by people who really want to see people succeed. Here are a couple of DP's about my current profile:
current FICO 8's: EX: 644, TU: 695, EQ: 684
current utilization: 45%
AAOA: 4 years and 3 months (will likely go down since I have just applied and received approval for 2 Amex cards)Total credit line: $24,375
My question is a two part question. Should I pay my citi card in full and try to negotiate all derogatory data to be removed? My citi card was opened by a family member without my knowledge and after going through the fraud department they deemed that I had knowledge of the account. It currently has a balance of: $2,171 and shows a few late payments on the report. It only impacts my Experian report for total utilization but not my other two. On the other hand I have a USAA CC with a $1480 balance that I can either pay off immediately or in the next 1 month. I guess the bottom line is, should I even try to settle with citi bank or make the minimum monthly payments and pay it off at a later date?
My recommendation would be to pay off the closed Citibank account.
Why would it be a better option?
@fsalsa2 wrote:Why would it be a better option?
That account with its negative history will be weighing you down for many years. If you don't give Citibank the money you owed them, you're not going to get anywhere with removing the negative history.
Additionally, it's bad for your scores from a utilization perspective. The balance is being factored into utilization, and the limit is not.