What am I doing wrong? My Score has barely improved after years of effort.

[Anonymous]

I am so frustrated  with my credit score.  I'm 46 I have not had a late payment since 2005 which was during my divorce.  I have good income to debt ratio, yet my score at it's highest was 657 in February. Then after charging $2900.00 on my Visa my score dropped 15 points to 642!!  I have a $10,000.00 limit and carry about a balance of 5-6k.  Now the kicker, I paid the Visa down to 4000k and my score went up only 4 points!!  I have a sears card that has 6000.00 limit and a 700.00 balance.  I have several other cards with 0 balances that I  don't use and have no car payment because I paid off the loan.  I bought a house for 525,000 last June on a 5 year arm, and took out a loan for 330,000.  Just refinanced it for 30 years and a lower interest rate, but had to pay 1.5 fee because my score was under 720.  I am seriously beside myself about this, if anyone can offer any advice or insight I would be grateful.

[Anonymous]

What negatives do you have? Just late payments? If so, how severe?

Are you getting your scores here? If so, what negative reasons are being listed?

Are CC and the mortgage your only open accounts?

You want your overall utilization on revolving accounts to be less than 9%, individual utilization less than 9%, and half or less of your accoutsn reporting $0, but at least 1 reporting some small balance.

[Anonymous]

Suggestions:

1.  Pay CC debt to under 10%.  Carrying 5-6k on 10k balance is going to hurt.

2.  Don't have a balance on more than 2 cc's, but try to only have a reported balance on 1 cc.

3.  Pay your auto loan to 65% of original loan amount.

4.  Don't apply for new credit (no new inquiries or accounts) till all this settles and you see results.

5.  Make sure everything is correct, dispute innacuracies.

6.  If you have past derogs, look at GW, PFD and DV options to improve.

7.  Get a Business CC as your next card for carrying balances (make sure it is one that does NOT report personally) but is personally guaranteed.

8.  If you have a close relative who has a very old CC account with good history, low balance, consider having yourself added as AU to improve oldest account, AAoA and utilization percentages.

[Anonymous]

The negative factors on my FICO report were:

1.    You have a collection and a serious delinquency on your credit report.  3 accts 60 days 2 collections

2.    You have multiple accounts showing missed payments or derogatory descriptions.  6 Accounts

3.    You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit.  48%

4.    You have a short credit history. 13 years

The Positive were:

1.    Recently paying bill on time. 3 years 5 months

2.    Many accounts in good standing.   4

The delinquencies and collections were all paid.  The collections were for 17.00 and 60.00 from charges the insurance company didn’t pay on a doctor’s bill.  We had no idea of this until a collection notice was sent and it was paid immediately.   That was over four years ago.  Isn’t four years enough to repair my credit, especially considering my credit had been good until getting sick and going through a divorce!

Also, how I can have 48% use of my credit when I have several s store credit card accounts that are at 0 balances and almost 200k equity in my home that we could have a line of credit on.  Are they only including my one Visa card?

[Anonymous]

For the medical debts, visit the medical debt board and learn how to have those removed. See link below.

As for your revolving utilization %-- add up the balances being reported and add up your CL--- divide balances by total CL. How long since you've used the store cards? If that doesn't give you 48%, then play around removing different CL from different accounts until you figure out the 48%.

The equity in your home that you could have a line of credit on has no affect on your score.

Are any of your accounts showing currently late or just past lates?

Try GW'ing late payments.

[haulingthescoreup]

It sounds like you're paying off your cards each month, but not until after the statement posts, which any reasonable person would do. Unfortunately, the banks/ CCC's report the balance on the statement to the credit bureaus, not the balance after you pay, so it makes it look like you have a lot of CC debt.

If this is the case, start paying each card off several days before its statement date, so the balance on the statement shows $0. You'll need to stop using the card several days before you pay, to let any last-minute charges post. Once the statement posts for your account, or you get your statement in the mail (I strongly prefer the online version), you can start using the card again.

Exceptions to this: HSBC/ Orchard bank cards (not store cards) and US Bank CC's update on the last business day of the month, reporting the balance as of that date, so time your payments accordingly. AmEx reports the balance on the statement, but they don't report it until four weeks later, so essentially, they're two months behind.

Most of us find that letting one card (two if we have a lot) report a small balance is better than having all report $0.

At any rate, if you aren't carrying balances over from month to month, you could reduce your util from 48% to almost nothing in around a month, and that should really be a good score booster.

[GregB]

Hauling,

I recall that Amex DID seem to have more delay in their reporting than most. However, at least since mid 2008 they seem to be right up to date.

Does anyone else find a delay in Amex reporting in the last 6-9months?

[haulingthescoreup]

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GregB wrote:

Hauling,

I recall that Amex DID seem to have more delay in their reporting than most. However, at least since mid 2008 they seem to be right up to date.

Does anyone else find a delay in Amex reporting in the last 6-9months?

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I hope this turns out to be true!

All I know is that I'm still staring at my March 13 balance on my Blue, and the April 13 balance hasn't shown up yet. There was the same pattern on the Gold.

[GregB]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
I hope this turns out to be true!

All I know is that I'm still staring at my March 13 balance on my Blue, and the April 13 balance hasn't shown up yet. There was the same pattern on the Gold.

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Hauling,

I knew my Amex Optima had just closed so I logged onto my TrueCredit.com (Transunion) change report every other day. Results:

Amex Opitma was zero activity for March and they were reporting zero.

Statement closed 4/27 with $335 in charges.

This new balance appeared on 5/7 Transunion report saying "Reported 5/5/2009"

That seems pretty prompt to me. Is Blue a charge card or a revolving one like Optima?

I do recall that they used to be really slow, like a month or two.

[haulingthescoreup]

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GregB wrote:

---

@haulingthescoreup wrote:
I hope this turns out to be true!

All I know is that I'm still staring at my March 13 balance on my Blue, and the April 13 balance hasn't shown up yet. There was the same pattern on the Gold.

---

Hauling,

I knew my Amex Optima had just closed so I logged onto my TrueCredit.com (Transunion) change report every other day. Results:

Amex Opitma was zero activity for March and they were reporting zero.

Statement closed 4/27 with $335 in charges.

This new balance appeared on 5/7 Transunion report saying "Reported 5/5/2009"

That seems pretty prompt to me. Is Blue a charge card or a revolving one like Optima?

I do recall that they used to be really slow, like a month or two.

---

Wow, I'm hoping I'm next in line for this!

Blue is revolving. So this has happened to me with both revolving and charge cards from them. And this has consistently held true for the lives of both cards.

But I'll add an asterisk to my usual caveat!