Credit Scores All Over The Place

[Anonymous]

Rebuilding credit, waiting for negative items to drop off after 7 years.

When I check my credit score, I get reasons like "serious deliquency", "too many accounts with balances", "number of accounts with deliquency". Will these fall off after the 7 year mark, which should be in a month or two? Or does that always stay on your credit report? 

How high can someone go if they have used credit responsibly after messing up in the past? Is 800+ an unattainable goal for me? I've followed all the other advice for improving credit scores but impact feels minimal over time. In theory, can someone with a past negative history ever have a perfect credit score?

[Jnbmom]

Please please disregard credit karma scores!!

Only go by your actual FICO scores, can't stress this enough.

It's good that you ordered your FICO after you get those then you can see where you stand.

[Remedios]

With the exception of some federal student loans and one type of BK, negative info will be removed from your CR no longer than 7.5 years from DOFD, usually at 7 year mark.
If you want to know DOFD, you can pull a copy of free annual credit report. It should have them listed (for most accounts anyway).
As far as is 800 a possibility for you, that's impossible to tell as we dont have any idea what your profile looks like now, or what kind of derogs we're talking about.
The biggest scoring gain happens when last derog is removed.
Good luck

[FlaDude]

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Credit scores have no memory, they are based on what is in your report now. Past derogs that have fallen off do not affect the score. The fact that your score was low in the past does not affect your score. You have just as much chance of reaching 800 or higher as someone with your identical profile who never had the negative items. 

Note that some lenders have much longer memories than 7 years, so even with an 850 score they might not extend credit to you if you had a charge off with them. I've read that Amex is one example.