Absolute noob in search of help.

[Anonymous]

I'm in need of some guidance with rebuilding my credit. Right now there are my scores. TU: 519 EX: 562 EQ: 550. I'm not entirely sure why the TU score is so low and far off from the others. But so be it.

I've never owned a credit card for one and have little understanding of how I will ever have one at this point haha. The worst thing on my credit report aside from a couple recent hard inquiries is a charge-off from my university as I paid late consistently and eventually stopped after losing my job. That was reported back in February. It has since gone to collections but I'm currently on a payment plan and trying to rehabilitate the loan(?), although I'm not sure what good that will do. I follow this forum occasionally out of curiosity and it always interests me to see people talk about pulling their credit score up and fixing their credit so I'm hoping you all can help me here. I kind of feel like my little knowledge is my biggest problem.

Thoughts? Any information or advice is helpful. Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

One bit of advice I'd like to share is that time is your friend in regards to credit repair. In other words, don't expect huge improvements in like a month or 2. Fixing collections, paying down balances, disputing when needed is all a long process. I've been at this as aggressively as my income allows and it's taken me 13 months just to hit the "good" mark as far as scores go. Get your full credit reports, then just work on 1 thing at a time. As long as you're working on it (and not applying for any new credit) your score will slowly creep up every month.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm in need of some guidance with rebuilding my credit. Right now there are my scores. TU: 519 EX: 562 EQ: 550. I'm not entirely sure why the TU score is so low and far off from the others. But so be it.

I've never owned a credit card for one and have little understanding of how I will ever have one at this point haha. The worst thing on my credit report aside from a couple recent hard inquiries is a charge-off from my university as I paid late consistently and eventually stopped after losing my job. That was reported back in February. It has since gone to collections but I'm currently on a payment plan and trying to rehabilitate the loan(?), although I'm not sure what good that will do. I follow this forum occasionally out of curiosity and it always interests me to see people talk about pulling their credit score up and fixing their credit so I'm hoping you all can help me here. I kind of feel like my little knowledge is my biggest problem.

Thoughts? Any information or advice is helpful. Thanks in advance.

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Your first step should be to apply for a couple of secured credit cards. Capital One is where I would try first. Discover, BoA, US Bank, Wells Fargo all have secured cards, though I'm not a fan of the Big Banks. I would suggest joining a credit union like SDFCU, NFCU, DCU, PenFed etc. Some of those are easy to join, usally by joining or contributing to a parter association. NFCU is probably the toughest.

As stated by a previous poster, don't view this as a "quick fix" sort of task - this is a long term commitment.

[Anonymous]

you say the "worst" thing on your credit report is your loan, but you don't say what else is on your report. 

Do you have a true picture of all of your baddies? 

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will look into the secured cards option asap! In fact Ill dtart looking inyo that noe sinve I have nothing else to do haha. I'm actually a member of a local credit union here but I'm considering leaving because of some bad experiences. I definitely know this won't be a quick fix.

As for the other things on my credit report, there's nothing other than the hard inquiries which there are exactly two of. The rest is just bare ad I have established no credit history whatsoever. When I signed up on CCT the "best" option for me to increase my score was actually to apply for a new credit card but I wasn't so sure about that.

I really appreciate you all helping me. Btw I'm 23. Will it hurt that I've never had a credit card or anything more than a simple checking account?

[Anonymous]

Will it hurt that I've never had a credit card or anything more than a simple checking account?

Unfortunately....yes. Your scores consider things like AAoA (Average age of accounts) and the number of accounts you have / had.

One thing you could do that might help in this area is........ Do you have an older family member with good credit that would be willing to add you to their credit card account as an AU (Authorized user)? You could tell the relative that you don't even want to use the card. In fact, they can hold onto it and not even give it to you. That you just want your name on there as a user.

More info on how it works: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=authorized+user+credit+...

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks everyone for your replies. I will look into the secured cards option asap! In fact Ill dtart looking inyo that noe sinve I have nothing else to do haha. I'm actually a member of a local credit union here but I'm considering leaving because of some bad experiences. I definitely know this won't be a quick fix.

As for the other things on my credit report, there's nothing other than the hard inquiries which there are exactly two of. The rest is just bare ad I have established no credit history whatsoever. When I signed up on CCT the "best" option for me to increase my score was actually to apply for a new credit card but I wasn't so sure about that.

I really appreciate you all helping me. Btw I'm 23. Will it hurt that I've never had a credit card or anything more than a simple checking account?

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To a degree, yes. Thats why you will need to start out with the secured cards. Don't go overboard with the amount you open them for - $300 each is all you need. No sense in tying up large amounts of cash in them at this point. Once you have had them for 6 months, you may start getting mail offers. Ignore the vast majority of them, as most will be junk like Credit One, First premier, Verve, Merrick and the like. You don't want these. The ones you want to wait for will be from Capital One. Even if you don't get sany offers in the mail from them, apply somewhere between the 6 to 9 month mark. You want to app for the unsecured Platinum card first.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again for the replies everyone. The AU option is a no go I believe, but I will look into it. Thanks for the info. I applied for 2 secured cards, CapOne and Wells Fargo. Been approved for both but the CapOne card has a $200 limit on it, the other $300 Should I make them both $300? This is helping me a lot and I'm learning quite a bit as I read more.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks again for the replies everyone. The AU option is a no go I believe, but I will look into it. Thanks for the info. I applied for 2 secured cards, CapOne and Wells Fargo. Been approved for both but the CapOne card has a $200 limit on it, the other $300 Should I make them both $300? This is helping me a lot and I'm learning quite a bit as I read more.

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Those limits are fine to start out with.

[Anonymous]

That is awesome that you are so young and taking steps to build your credit! I am sort of new to this, but I have a couple of ideas.

Since you are unhappy with your credit union and procured a secured credit card from Wells Fargo, I recommend that you start banking with them also. This will establish history and a relationship with them that may help your approval odds of obtaining an unsecured credit card with them.

Also, you stated your rehabilitating your student loan? Check out the student loans topic. There are people there stating that they have been able to get lates deleted from their report. I don't know much about that but here's a link where people are talking about it.

One last thing, I don't know what kind of bad experience you had with your credit union, but if you do open an account with Wells Fargo, be sure to take good care of it. Get overdraft protection and make sure you keep it in good standing so they can see how responsibly your handling your account when considering a credit card app in the future.  Good luck!

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Student-Loans/Finished-SL-Rehab-UPDATE/td-p/4746617