Hello Everyone! Been rebuilding for about a year now and have made some great progress. Got rid of any collection accounts via PFD for 10% or less of their balances (low amounts under$1k) and opened some new lines of credit. All baddies except two I was able to get an early exception to get them off my credit reports. Don't want to overload with the past so let me give a picture of where I'm at now and what I am thinking about doing:
Started at 02/2020 with:
Fico 8 Scores
- EQ - 490
- TU - 496
- EXP - 523
As of 07/21/21:
FICO 9 TU - 666
FICO 8 Equifax - 653
FICO 8 Experian - 622
No accounts in collection
AAoA - 1 year
Negative Accounts
Capital One - Auto Loan
- DOFD - 11/2018
- DOLA - EQ shows 09/2018 and TU shows 07/2019
- Deficient Balance - $11,767 after repo and auction
- Offered to settle for $1765 (15% of balance) on 05/2021 via lump sum or payments of up to 36 installments.
- Account still updates CO monthly
Discover Bank - CC that is a CO
- DOFD - EQ 04/2015, EXP 12/2017?
- DOLA - EQ 11/2014, TU 06/2014
- Deficient Balance - $1,413
- No offer to settle. CCC tried to get a judgment in small claims court. CCC's attorney no-showed and the case was dismissed. Didn't even know about the case until maybe 2018 cause they sent a court notice to a prior address.
- This will fall off in late 2021 per the notes on the reports I've pulled.
Positive Accounts
Installment Accounts
- Self Lender
- Opened 02/2020 and matured 03/2021
- All payments on time
- $539 limit
- NFCU Auto Loan
- $25k loan with the first payment coming 08/2021
- 4.39% APR
- Not yet showing on any of my reports
Revolving Accounts
- NFCU
- Opened 09/2020
- $300 limit, NFCU increased on their own to $600 limit in 12/2020 w/ utilization never above 3%
- NFCU said in a letter then will review the CC history for potential movement from secured to unsecured 03/2021 and CLI to $2000.
- Currently utilization around 60%
- SDFCU
- Opened 10/2020
- $250 Limit w/ utilization never above 3%
- Greylock FCU
- Opened 09/2020
- $250 limit w/ utilization never above 3%
- Andrews FCU
- Opened 11/2020
- $500 limit w/ utilization never above 3%
Authorized User
- Capital One (Parent's card)
- Opened 03/2018
- $4250 limit
- AMEX
- Opened 03/2018 but shows for me opening as of 03/2021
- $1k limit
Now that you have seen a glimpse of the journey...my questions lol:
- With a new installment loan about to hit my account and decrease my AAoA, should I use this as a good time to app for more credit?
- Apple did a SP and approved me for a $1500 limit on an Apple Card at 21.99% (ouch) but it's a start. I am thinking about adding this to the portfolio. Thoughts?
- I am also looking at the NFCU More Rewards Amex. Amex did not match me to anything on their pre-approval tool site. Does this matter if I go through NFCU though?
- My charge off from Capital One is still reporting. I have been looking at settling but seeing that people are saying it won't really increase my score and others are saying it is suppressing the score and needs to be settled. Does anyone have any experience with this?
Open to all feedback and advice based off my current standing.
@MarcuzAgrippa wrote:Hello Everyone! Been rebuilding for about a year now and have made some great progress. Got rid of any collection accounts via PFD for 10% or less of their balances (low amounts under$1k) and opened some new lines of credit. All baddies except two I was able to get an early exception to get them off my credit reports. Don't want to overload with the past so let me give a picture of where I'm at now and what I am thinking about doing:
Started at 02/2020 with:
Fico 8 Scores
As of 07/21/21:
FICO 9 TU - 666
FICO 8 Equifax - 653
FICO 8 Experian - 622
No accounts in collection
AAoA - 1 year
Negative Accounts
Capital One - Auto Loan
- Account still updates CO monthly
Discover Bank - CC that is a CO
- This will fall off in late 2021 per the notes on the reports I've pulled.
Positive Accounts
Installment Accounts
- Self Lender
- Opened 02/2020 and matured 03/2021
- All payments on time
- $539 limit
- You can close this one. You only need 1 installement loan to keep FICO happy.
- NFCU Auto Loan
- $25k loan with the first payment coming 08/2021
- 4.39% APR
- Not yet showing on any of my reports
Revolving Accounts
- NFCU
- Opened 09/2020
- $300 limit, NFCU increased on their own to $600 limit in 12/2020 w/ utilization never above 3%
- NFCU said in a letter then will review the CC history for potential movement from secured to unsecured 03/2021 and CLI to $2000.
- Currently utilization around 60%
- SDFCU
- Opened 10/2020
- $250 Limit w/ utilization never above 3%
- Greylock FCU
- Opened 09/2020
- $250 limit w/ utilization never above 3%
- Andrews FCU
- Opened 11/2020
- $500 limit w/ utilization never above 3%
Authorized User
- Capital One (Parent's card)
- Opened 03/2018
- $4250 limit
- AMEX
- Opened 03/2018 but shows for me opening as of 03/2021
- $1k limit
Now that you have seen a glimpse of the journey...my questions lol:
- With a new installment loan about to hit my account and decrease my AAoA, should I use this as a good time to app for more credit?
- Apple did a SP and approved me for a $1500 limit on an Apple Card at 21.99% (ouch) but it's a start. I am thinking about adding this to the portfolio. Thoughts?
- I am also looking at the NFCU More Rewards Amex. Amex did not match me to anything on their pre-approval tool site. Does this matter if I go through NFCU though? This is a NFCU card with AMEX branding. If it was a real AMEX card. I wouldnt have one due to my BK.
- My charge off from Capital One is still reporting. I have been looking at settling but seeing that people are saying it won't really increase my score and others are saying it is suppressing the score and needs to be settled. Does anyone have any experience with this?
- A charged off card even though its closed still counts against your single and overall util%. Once settled or PIF it has to reflect a $0 balance which will help a score a little bit. Your util will drop and score goes up. Not by a whole lot because the CO ding still will affect you till it falls off.
Open to all feedback and advice based off my current standing.
Welcome @MarcuzAgrippa
When you say "utilization never above 3%". Are you saying you never use more than 3% of your credit limit or you only have 3% reporting at the end of the bill cycle.
For now you have enough to build on and let things age. More credit doesnt mean higher scores. Work on fixing whats broken first. The CO's for example. Once your AAoA's pass 2 yrs that helps also with your scores. Clean up the past and the future will be much easier to grow with. FICO doesnt care who the creditor is. The consumer does though. Nor does FICO care how high the credit limit is. The consumer does. FICO just wants to see how you use what you have and how it reports. Please answer the 3% util question. That holds some answers that canbe addressed and may help you more.
Hi @FireMedic1 and thanks for reading through my journey!!
- For Self Lender, the account is closed now. It was paid in full back in March of 2021. Haven't had any installment loans since then until this recent car loan I just finalized.
- For the NFCU More Rewards that makes perfect sense. Wasn't 100% sure before asking.
- For the Capital One CO that makes sense too. It is gonna be on the report till around 06/2025 from what I see. I am looking at settling it since it will be the only CO on my profile shortly.
- I wish Captial One would let me settle for less but reading other posts it seems they stick to their offer pretty tough and stand their ground.
- For the utilization never above 3%, I was basically mentioning for each card I have never had a balance that was more than 3% of the limit report. On my NFCU card though, it is the main one I use. The current balance has utilization of about 60% presently.
@MarcuzAgrippa wrote:
Hi @FireMedic1 and thanks for reading through my journey!!
- For Self Lender, the account is closed now. It was paid in full back in March of 2021. Haven't had any installment loans since then until this recent car loan I just finalized.
- For the NFCU More Rewards that makes perfect sense. Wasn't 100% sure before asking.
- For the Capital One CO that makes sense too. It is gonna be on the report till around 06/2025 from what I see. I am looking at settling it since it will be the only CO on my profile shortly.
- I wish Captial One would let me settle for less but reading other posts it seems they stick to their offer pretty tough and stand their ground.
- For the utilization never above 3%, I was basically mentioning for each card I have never had a balance that was more than 3% of the limit report. On my NFCU card though, it is the main one I use. The current balance has utilization of about 60% presently.
Ah ok. Thought for a minute there you were only using 3% of the credit limit on each card. I was going to say it would be a tad difficult to get a CLI if you didnt use the card more. But thats not the case. Yeah get that CO out of your life and it wont count against your aggregate (overall) util since you have the one card at 61%. Its the backwards saying. Fix whats broken first. Then things will really make a 180. Good Luck!