Transunions score HELP!!!

[Anonymous]

I'm a little new to this but I could really use a lot of help, PLEASE. Ok my husband and I are trying to buy a home and go through FHA loan. 2 years ago with the eco downfall we got hit hard along with his credit. I've cleaned everything up, all ablanced on cc paid off, collections paid and most approved the delete. His biggest problem is he has a current score of 617 and it has to be 620. When we started he was origianlly a 560 and in 2 months it went to 617 and the bank told us to make an offer and close in 45days so we did. Well in 2 months now his score hasn't changed. I'm so scared we're going to loose this house. This month I raised the credit limit on one card like I was told and charged a small amount on another. We took out a secure credit card like the bank told us to do and it reported but didn't change the score at all. They only go by transunion so I paid to monitor his score for the month and it told me his score was 728 ??? Um, I called and they said it's not accurate and it could be different depending on the underwriter. That's over 100 points off so I don't get it. I need this score to go up 3points. Oh and an account that we closed months ago has finally repoerted closed so now I'm worried that will hurt us.I need all the advice or help I can get. Sorry this ins long, we've just been going through this for months now and I can't take much more. Thanks!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi new2homes, and welcome aboard!

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@Anonymous wrote:
I'm a little new to this but I could really use a lot of help, PLEASE. Ok my husband and I are trying to buy a home and go through FHA loan. 2 years ago with the eco downfall we got hit hard along with his credit. I've cleaned everything up, all ablanced on cc paid off, collections paid and most approved the delete. His biggest problem is he has a current score of 617 and it has to be 620. When we started he was origianlly a 560 and in 2 months it went to 617 and the bank told us to make an offer and close in 45days so we did. Well in 2 months now his score hasn't changed. I'm so scared we're going to loose this house. This month I raised the credit limit on one card like I was told and charged a small amount on another. We took out a secure credit card like the bank told us to do and it reported but didn't change the score at all. They only go by transunion so I paid to monitor his score for the month and it told me his score was 728 ??? Um, I called and they said it's not accurate and it could be different depending on the underwriter. That's over 100 points off so I don't get it. I need this score to go up 3points. Oh and an account that we closed months ago has finally repoerted closed so now I'm worried that will hurt us.I need all the advice or help I can get. Sorry this ins long, we've just been going through this for months now and I can't take much more. Thanks!!!

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First, where did you obtain the 617 score from? Is it a FICO score? Did your lender provide it to you, or did you get it from another credit score website? It's important for us to understand exactly what type/brand of score you're referring to.

While we wait for answers in that regard, have you had an opportunity to read this: Improve Your Score?

One thing that struck me is that you mentioned that you allowed a small balance to report on one of your cards. How many credit cards do you have. What is the limit on the one that you have the balance on, and what is the reported balance. Do you have any balances on any of your other cards?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the welcome! The credit score was obtained through our lender. They are the ones who pull it every month. Umm the credit cards. We have a 3 cards, Associated bank secured card, a Citi card and an Old NAvy card, my dad also added him to his Menards card a few months back. I raised the Old Navy card limit from 190 to 310 and charged $7 on it, we just recieved the starement a week ago so I paid it. Our citi card has had a zero balance until Thurs, when I told my husband to charge something on it. there's a $1900 limit so he charged like $55 dollars. We prepaid $400 on the secured card and were told to use it right away. We put $25 on it and I got the statement yesterday so I paid that today. We started to charge small amounts on the cards this month because we were told even though the balance was zero it wasn't helping us because there was no activity on the accounts.

[Booner72]

For maximum score potential, only have one of those cards report a balance - 1-9% of it's limit.  FICO scores total utilization, individual utilization, and how many report a balance.

Do you know how to ensure that the correct balance gets reported to the CRA's?  By making sure that, regardless of the DUE DATE, you pay attention to the Statement Date.  So 5 days or so before your statement is set to cut, make sure your balances are zero, except one. 

Regarding the authorized user card - what is the limit and the balance?  If that card has a balance that is any higher than 9% or so, then that could be hurting the score, and it also is hurting the score that all 4 of the accounts are reporting balances.  You got bad advice - the only way it would hurt you to have paid the acccounts off is if ALL accounts showed zero balances.  

It would be helpful for you to find out from your lender which version of Transunion they are pulling as people here could give you better and more specific advice with that knowledge.  Ask them if it is TU04 or TU08. 

I bet this will get you the 3 points, if not more.  Also, your lender can do a "rapid rescore" to get this all lined up if you are running out of time.  When are you set to pull credit again?

[Anonymous]

That is what has happend for 2 months is all our cards showed a zero balance because we weren't using them at all. The old Navy is a 310 credit limit and I charged $7 dollars on it. Our Citi card is a $1900 limit and we only put on aboput $55 so we're well bleow 9% I just put a few small things on the cards so they would have something to report since the last 2 months there hasn't been activity. That's why I was hoping those small things would be enough to bring up the score 3 points.

[Booner72]

OK.  You will get dinged for all account reporting zero balances.

You will get dinged for all accounts reporting balances.

The trick is to have ONE report a balance.  Apparently, that shows responsible use of revolving credit.

There are thousands of posts here to back up this theory. 

[Anonymous]

In a couple days here Old NAvy will update and it will show that we raised the credit limit and paid off the small balance. There's a Menard card that I forgot to mention that had an $11 balance and thast will show it's been paid. The small balance on the secured credit card will show it's been paid off but that doesn't report until the beginning of of Feb. So now anything that had a small balance will show paid and balance zero and our Citi card that had a zero balance will show a small balance of$55 dollars. That's going to hurt us?