How did my score go down to 650?

[Anonymous]

I am hoping someone can help me out here. I do not know how my score went from 690 18 months ago to a 650 now.

Here are some details.
Just under 10 years ago I had a bankruptcy. Should call off in march, which I am sure will help a lot. I have a $5k credit card discharge 6 years old.

2013 I was given a 100% pre owned car loan for 18k. Paid in full 3 years later, 1 year ahead.
2015 I was given a mortgage at current rates. 170k with 25% down.
4 months ago I got a new $25k car loan at 4% for a $33k car

$1000 credit card given to me about 5 months ago. It is a business card but appears on my personal credit. I would make several payments a month on that, usually a few days after I charged on it. Never had a balance.

I believe I am a secondary on my wife's card, which has no issues. A few high balances for 1 billing cycle over 2 years. Otherwise usually around half or less

Never missed any payments. No negatives. No collections in 6 years. 

My income has gone up over the past 2 years by 200%

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you!

[heavyjay]

Where did you get the scores you quoted?

[Anonymous]

Just did a credit karma inquiry. I have 3 high impacts on my report.
My 100% payment, my bankruptcy just under 10 years ago, and my wifes card, which appears to have a higher balance than I expected.

Any reason why I cannot just my myself off her card without it hurting me?

Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Your credit card situation is certainly an area in which you could improve a lot.  It's hard for me to tell for sure, but it sounds like you have no personal cards in your name, exactly 1 business card in your name, and you are an AU on one of your wife's cards.  Is that right?

Would your wife be willing to keep the card you two share at a very low reporting balance?  At leas for the next six months?  She can still use it a lot if she likes, she would just need to pay it down to a small dollar figure before each statement.

Your goal over the next year should be to get a couple personal cards on your name.  It may be easiest to do after your BK falls off.  And once you have these cards, to be removed from being an AU on your wife's card.

Another goal for you should be learning how CC balances affect your score and how to control how much they report.  What you want is a few cards of your own, where you always have one reporting a small positive balance and the other two reporting $0.  All cards at $0 will hurt you but you will also be hurt by one or more cards with a high utilization. 

[Anonymous]

Sound advice from CGID above, as always.

OP, one thing you should also consider is getting your FICO 08 scores.  The scores you are getting from CK are VantageScore 3.0 scores which are not FICO scores which are much more common and meaningful.  If you visit Credit Check Total you can get all 3 of your FICO 08 scores for $1 so that you can really see where you stand, then after a certain amount of time once you've made some changes you can spend $1 and pull your scores again to see how you improved. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the responses.
So get my wife to get a low balance or remove myself.
Get a card or two and keep balances low.
Wait for my bankruptcy to fall of in a few months

[heavyjay]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the responses.
So get my wife to get a low balance or remove myself.
Get a card or two and keep balances low.
Wait for my bankruptcy to fall of in a few months

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And don't rely on scores from CK. They're not FICO scores.

[sjt]

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@heavyjay wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the responses.
So get my wife to get a low balance or remove myself.
Get a card or two and keep balances low.
Wait for my bankruptcy to fall of in a few months

---

And don't rely on scores from CK. They're not FICO scores.

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+1 Credit Karma scores are Vantage 3.0 and not FICO scores.

If your 50 point drop was based on a 700 score from Credit Karma or a FICO score?

FYI, With a Vantage scoring system you can get a big drop all your credit card balances are at zero.

[Anonymous]

Another thing I'm not sure was mentioned yet, the OP just added a car loan 4 months ago.  Adding this loan no doubt added an inquiry, could have reduced AAoA and of course added a "new account" which is an installment loan near maxed out utilization.  All of these factors combined are known to take scores down some.