Raised my score by 145 points in 4 months...now I'm stuck

[Anonymous]

I was able to raise my terrible credit score from 411 to 556(still bad) in 4 months by paying down debts, making on time payments and staying under 15% of credit card utilization by the time they report. My credit limit is only at $300 (unsecured) and I do not qualify for an increase until 3 additional months. My score has been stuck at 556 with maybe a point increase over the past 2 months. Is there another way to continue increasing my score? My goal is to be as close to 700 as I can by the end of this year but I'm not sure what else to do. I have 5 of my 8 inquiries falling off this year and in the process of disputing a small collection but thats it. Should I add on a secured credit card to up my line of credit?

[rmduhon]

1. Where did you get the score from?
2. What (if any) baddies do you have? DoFD, amount, company?
3. What positive accounts do you have?

The answers to these questions will determine what advice we give

[Anonymous]

1. I monitor my credit report through Capitol One (Transunion), paid to view my experian and signed up for Credit Karma. that shows Transunion and equifax (though credit karma reports lower scores than the other places). 

2. I have a Capitol One Sept 2015 $1500 and Santander for $6000 July 2010

3. This is going to sound crazy but I have 43 positive accounts on my credit report. That is bc my student loan through Fed Loan broke up my larger loan into 10 seperate loans. And those 10 loans were bought out by Fed Loan a couple years ago so there are an additional 10 loans that show as closed but positive. Same thing happened when my Salle Mae loans got bought by Navient. They split those loans up into 5 loans. So I have 30 positive accounts that are just from open and closed (bought out) student loans. The terrible thing about this is that if I ever miss a payment I will show 10 accounts delinquent. I saw the biggest score increase just by making my 3 loans (my fed, navient, wells fargo) current. Still not sure why they are all split into smaller loans.

[rmduhon]

Cap1 is a Fako score, CK also. Do the 7 day trial for $1 at creditchecktotal to see what your actual Fico 08 scores are. Which reports is Santander reporing to? The Cap1 baddie is what's killing your scores because it's fairly new. I'd pay it as soon as you can

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I signed up and all 3 scores are within 5 points of what was reported on CK and Cap 1. I will definitely get the Cap One off my acount ASAP. I assumed that paying it off wouldnt do much for my score since it will show late payments and a charge off no matter what I do. 

[cjane1]

Your credi utilization needs to be at 9% or lower, that will help your score and getting another line of credit. You may need to get a secured c/c to help your score, past postings have suggested at least 3 lines of credit is the best. My husbands score was in the 500's and now at 705, it took us about a year to get it that high but then we do have a repo from Santander on our credit report. We made a settlement agreement with them, we have 1 more payment and then will be sending out a GW letter/email to get the score higher if we get them to take it off.

[bdmullaly]

What is a GW letter? What steps did you take to raise the score that much in a year?

[cjane1]

It is a Goodwill Letter. You can send a GW to the collection agency after the collection is paid and ask for removal . Some collection agencies will not or it takes talking, emailing, or sending a letter to a person that will remove. They will tell you it can't be done but it's been done, I paid my AFNI collection then sent a GW email and it was removed.  There are many members that have had success getting collections removed and can help with info you need.

[stargazer25]

You might also want to consider opening a secured line of credit so you can a better credit mix. 

[cjane1]

We had to get a revolving credit because our credit scores weren't going to go up unless we did. We had a truck loan that we paid off but that really didn't make much of a difference when it was paid off. We got the secured c/c through our credit union and once our scores started going up we qualified for Walmart store card and Capitol One,mine is taking longer to get where his is since I have collections on my credit report but I am almost to 700.