Stupid score hasn't moved since Sept 17th...

[Anonymous]

Hey all,

Anyone else have realllllllllly slow periods where their score doesn't change at all?  Mine has been at 766 with Equifax since Sept 17th.  That's almost 2 months!  I subscribe to Score Watch, but I even bought new scores on the 23rd of Sept, 6th of Oct, 13th of Oct, and the 3rd of Nov, and it's still the same.  Here's a quick breakdown of my credit history, per the MyFico site:

Payment history:  Great

Amount of debt:  Very Good

Length of credit history:  Good

Amount of new credit:  Very Good

Hurting my score:  Short account history

Helping my score:  No serious delinquency, low credit usage, bills paid on time recently, recent credit card use

Oldest account:  Opened 11 years ago

Average age of accounts:  3 years

Number of Inquiries:  0

Number of accounts that were ever 60 days late or or worse:  1

Ratio of Revolving balances to your credit limits:  3%

Here is a breakdown of my account history and what currently shows on my Equifax report:

Military Star card:  Opened Sep 1996:  Credit Limit - $8250     Current Balance - $929    

Paid Late - 30 days late in May 2003, Mar 2004 and 1 60 day late in Jun 2003

JC Penney:  Opened Nov 2005:  Credit Limit - $200     Current Balance - $0

Never late

Macy's:  Opened Nov 2005:  Credit Limit - $500     Current Balance - $0

Never late

American Express:  Opened Apr 2006:  Credit Limit - $10,000     Current Balance - $0

Never late

Discover Card:  Opened Jul 2006:  Credit Limit - $4500     Current Balance - $0

Never late

Chase Visa:  Opened Sep 2006:  Credit Limit - $5000     Current Balance - $0

Never late

HSBC Orchard Bank MasterCard:  Opened Jun 2004:  Credit Limit - $1800     Current Balance - $0

Never late

Lord & Taylor:  Opened Nov 2005:  Credit Limit - (Not reported)     Current Balance - $0

Never late

First Premier Visa:  Opened Jul 2005:  Credit Limit - $250   Current Balance - $0.  Account closed by me in Jul 2006 - Never late

First Bankcard:  Opened Sep 1998:  Credit Limit - $500     Current Balance - $0.  Account transferred or sold - Never late

USAA Car Loan:  Opened May 2006:  Current Balance:  $25,329

Never late

Okay, so there's the long breakdown!  Any ideas on why my score isn't moving?  I haven't had a late payment since March of 2004.  I have decent credit limits on my cards.  I use my cards every month for small purchases and then pay them off the moment they show online to show usage.  Anything I can do to kick my score in the butt and get it moving? 

[Anonymous]

jay, you pulled your EQ credit report from myFiCO and it showed you with 766??

Honey! You are chopping in high cotton! Very few people here have scores that good.

Seriously though, is there an actual need for you to increase your scores?

[Anonymous]

Yes, my score has been 766 since Sep 17th.  I realize this is a good score but I want to break 800.  Call me greedy? 

[Anonymous]

Have you tried to GW those lates?

The short avg age is gonna take time to go much further-
Time is your biggest friend.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yes, my score has been 766 since Sep 17th. I realize this is a good score but I want to break 800. Call me greedy?

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[haulingthescoreup]

You're at the point that with the possible exceptions of GW'ing the lates, there's nothing really you can do but turn the pages on the calendar.

Do you have any cards opened within the last year that are about to hit their 6-month or 12-month anniversaries? You'll get a tiny hiccup then.

One thing that would give you a jump, but only temporarily, is to become an AU on a card with 18 or 20 years credit history length. But it would need to have immaculate history, or it could well hurt more than help. I don't know that you'd get any real satisfaction from knowing that you had a higher score that really was bogus. And whenever they decide to stop counting AU history, you'll be back down to your real score numbers.

I went AU on DH's card to get the history, and it helped, but I will apply to joint status if I can ever get my scores to start moving forward again.

[Anonymous]

The AU isn't really an option for me.  I wrote a good will later to the one account that I have late payments on about 30 days ago.  I'm overseas, so I figure it will take a bit of time for them to respond.  I'm curious if it does work on how much it will actually help my score.  I'll be sure to post the results of that good will letter.  I got a template from another user on here and it sounded great!  Hopefully they buy my sales pitch. 

[Anonymous]

I disputed one 30 days late and 2 collections, all of which was removed...all of the business reporting closed the door, I guess I was lucky. The TU score gone up 40 points, EQ 25, EX just 18.  I also paid off lots of revolving balances , from 17K down to 5K and that did very little good for the score.

[Anonymous]

Once you begin to surpass the mid-700s, the law of averages kicks in, and increasing the score beyond that becomes much more difficult. This is because the FICO formula trends scores toward the mean. As you get further and further above the mean, raising your score becomes more difficult and lowering it (unfortunately) becomes far easier. A 30-day late that would have dinged you 20 points back at 550 and 35 points at 675 would whack you for 40 to 50 points now, and 60 or so if you got past 800.

[Anonymous]

My FICOs are in the 800s.  I've been on a FICO Score "plateau" since June.  Even though I've paid down my revolving debt by over $4600 since mid-June, my 3 scores have remained unchanged. 

[Anonymous]

Seems to me that this glass is half full.  I can understand wanting the scores to go higher, but on the other hand at least they didn't decline any, and with them where they are you can do almost anything you want to do which is the point of having credit in the first place isn't it?

I'm a FICO-Holic along with the rest here, though I'd love to have your scores.

Good luck hitting that 800, I'll be just as excited for you as you will be for yourself when it happens!

Van