Anyone else on a plateau?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose score has reached a plateau.  Anyone care to commiserate with me?

My EQ score has been 715 since April.  It doesn't seem to want to budge even though I hoped some positives in that time frame would have helped me...

Since April

• Added a $9000 TL (highest CL)
• Decreased # of Accounts with a balance (from 3/4 to 3/5)
• No new inquiries on EQ
• UTI maintained at 5%
• Oldest account aged to 10 years
• Auto loan aged to 2 years
• One CC aged to 2 years

Seems like those positives should have outweighed the one potential negative of adding a new account (and thus decreasing average age)...  ...sigh... 

Maybe I'm maxed out for my bucket (major derog bucket)?

[atlastontheroad]

Yep.  There has been some small conversation in my head about glass ceilings. 

I have a derog that should fall off "soon-ish" as well as a fistful of lates (the last ones!) that will hang on through sometime in 2014.  So, it's plateau time for me too and it's frustrating.

I'm hoping to break into 700's by the end of the year on all three reports.  From there, it's just more waiting.

Unless I find I should have another card or two to round out the stable.  But that's a discussion for another board in a few months (grin)....

atlast....

[Anonymous]

(9/29/2008: edited out image of flatlined EQ SW graph, stuck at 715.) 

edit: deleted image of EQ graph hosted from this site, as it will continue to update in the background. If you import a screenshot from imageshack or other hosting sites, the image will be fixed and won't keep ticking along. --hauling

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 09-29-2008 10:04 AM

[Anonymous]

I assume you have 5 total accounts? Does FICO say you need more credit? For me, the optimum number of total accounts is 8. I also think there is a price you pay for utility - for me, 5% is high. I get a ding for 5% ut. Optimum ut. for me is between 1-3%. 

Do you have a mix of credit?

Also, keep in mind the avergae credit score is now reported to be 693. So - FICO scoring tends to push people to this average. Meaning, if you're in the 700's, it is harder to gain points, while if you're below 693, it's easier.

[Anonymous]

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cobra19 wrote:

I assume you have 5 total accounts? Does FICO say you need more credit? For me, the optimum number of total accounts is 8. I also think there is a price you pay for utility - for me, 5% is high. I get a ding for 5% ut. Optimum ut. for me is between 1-3%. 

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Yes, me too!  If I go to 4-5% I get dinged.

[Anonymous]

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cobra19 wrote:

I assume you have 5 total accounts? Does FICO say you need more credit? For me, the optimum number of total accounts is 8. I also think there is a price you pay for utility - for me, 5% is high. I get a ding for 5% ut. Optimum ut. for me is between 1-3%. 

Do you have a mix of credit?

Also, keep in mind the avergae credit score is now reported to be 693. So - FICO scoring tends to push people to this average. Meaning, if you're in the 700's, it is harder to gain points, while if you're below 693, it's easier.

I was referring only to my revolving accounts.  I have a total of 26 accounts on EQ.  9 are open, 17 are closed (mainly old SL's that I consolidated).  Of the 9 open, 2 are SL's and one is an auto loan.  Those of course have balances, and also 3 of my 5 CC's have balances.  (The remaining open account is a collection account, but it doesn't show up in collections.  It just shows as a past due account.)

My uti has fluctuated from 3% to 8% over the past 4 months, and my score has not moved.

[score_building]

more than half of your accts. have balances?  flip that to less than half... from what i've read here i think that could free up some pointage, no?

[GFer]

My scores have stagnated since all of my new accounts (7) have posted in last few months. Anywhere from 2-4 payments have posted on all of them. This month I actually let 4 of the new accounts post balances anywhere from 4% to 30%. (Simply because I was bored with credit gardening!  (Score didn't change!)

I've paid off all but one to post with roughly 2% utilization on that card. I have a year or more before I apply for my mortgage, so no big deal.

I also went out last night and charged a little something on two older cards that I hadn't realized had went 'inactive'.

Whomever said credit gardening was boring....was soooooooooooo right!

[Madison]

I feel like I have hit the FICO ceiling even though I am continuing lowering my utilization each month and making more than minimum payments on time. You would think that baddies would have less and less impact on our scores. You can see how much progress we made only to be put in another bucket and have hit a plateau. We paid off a finance company in full in August and we got a score watch alert that we did and we didn't get any increase in our credit score. Go figure. We will be paying off another CC this month which has a 12% utilization. But I find it most interesting that FICO is quick to respond to a new loan but slow to respond when you pay one off.

Message Edited by Madison on 09-13-2008 08:05 AM

Message Edited by Madison on 09-14-2008 12:37 PM

[Anonymous]

My scores haven't changed since at least April too, that's when I started at MyFico and started checking them.

I started out owing $6k on a CL of about $75k with 6 credit cards. I am now down to $750, basically in the range that I PIF each month.  I don't have any derogatory except for an auto loan that I co-signed for and was defaulted on but I paid in full.  This is supposed to come off this December.

I don't know what else I can do to raise my scores.  I don't think that getting more credit cards will help, would probably hurt. My most recent card is 2 years old.  I only have one inquiry from opening a Wells Fargo brokerage account that hits 2 years in March.  I have a mortage and an auto loan, just $3k left on the auto.  I have had two ScoreWatch alerts about CC that I used that were previously dormant, very small amounts just to keep them current.  This didn't change my score at all either.

Yesterday I disputed  as "This account is closed"  two old mortgages that were closed status on all but Experian.  They had them 0 balance but open.

I'm not going to check scores again until December.  It's a bummer to check and see that there hasn't been 1 point change on any of them.

Message Edited by PittsburgPamela on 09-14-2008 09:29 AM