Interested in credit score improvement

[RonM21]

Also to help answer your question about the Collections, if an account is removed your score usually should rise. This is because it was dragging your score down due to being a derogatory. The only occasion I can see (although more rare) the score decreasing after removal would be if somehow it was still an account being calculated towards a scoring category.

Like if it was a Credit Card that had a very high age to it, and also still counted towards your overall total credit and utilization, maybe it coming off would outweigh the normal point gain you would get, because that trade line contributed a lot of positive towards your score.

It may also depend on if there are other negatives or factors that still have an impact when the account is removed.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Ok. Equifax:606 Transunion:624 Experian:599

Yes, I have credit cards. I have 4 credit cards. 1 of them is a store credit card. 1 of them has a big limit, and I recently paid a large portion of the balance off to help improve the credit utilization...

Credit Utilization is currently at 54%, according to Credit Karma.

I do have 4 open collections, 1 was recently paid off... it's still on the the report though... Also, I had one removed... when it was removed the credit score increased then decreased shortly after... Also, the one that was recently paid off might be removed sometime this month (December). I believe 1 past collection account is closed and was reported as "Charged Off" I believe that's considered as a "Negative", am I right?

I do have a loan... the amount is a little over 4,000... which is currently more than what the original amount of the loan was when I first opened the loan. The loan is like this because I post poned a couple payments on it...

[RonM21]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

Ok. Equifax:606 Transunion:624 Experian:599

Yes, I have credit cards. I have 4 credit cards. 1 of them is a store credit card. 1 of them has a big limit, and I recently paid a large portion of the balance off to help improve the credit utilization...

Credit Utilization is currently at 54%, according to Credit Karma.

I do have 4 open collections, 1 was recently paid off... it's still on the the report though... Also, I had one removed... when it was removed the credit score increased then decreased shortly after... Also, the one that was recently paid off might be removed sometime this month (December). I believe 1 past collection account is closed and was reported as "Charged Off" I believe that's considered as a "Negative", am I right?

I do have a loan... the amount is a little over 4,000... which is currently more than what the original amount of the loan was when I first opened the loan. The loan is like this because I post poned a couple payments on it...

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Thanks for providing the info.  The first recommendation I have for you is to work on getting your Credit Card utilization percentage down.  If you were able to at least get that down to 28% or even under 9% (better) you would definitely see an uptick in your scores.  Utilization is a key factor that contributes to your scores.  

On your collections, any that are not paid off, if you can pay them off that would be great.  Even though it is still on the report, future Lenders would see that you at least paid them.  But more importantly, you want to see if you can PFD (pay for deletion).  This involves either calling the collection agencies and seeing if they will agree to delete the collection by paying in full or settling at a certain amount.  The other is a Goodwill Letter Gesture.  This would be sending the agency a request in writing asking nicely for them to consider deleting the collection.  Any collection that you can get off your report is a positive towards you scores.

Yes, "Charged Off" would be a negative.

The loan is under the category of Installment loans.  This category like the Revolving Credit, has its own utilization percentage.  Right now you are losing points because you are at 100% utilization.  That number would need to start coming down for you to gain points in this area.  Like the revolving credit utilization, the lower the percentage, the more points you gain.

One extra nugget to keep in mind for both revolving and installment utilization is that you do not want the percentage to drop to zero.  You will usually lose some points when that happens.  That is further down the road though.

[NRB525]

OP it seems you have a number of negatives, baddies, in play here. The timing of them, when they may ultimately fall off your reports is the biggest facor on your scores.

The CK scores are Vantage, not FICO.

You may find it useful to read some of the articles on MyFICO to get an organized explanation of how scoring works. The questions and responses you see in these forums are helpful for specifics, but the articles may get a lot of questions answered.

[Anonymous]

Is there a place in the FICO website to find the installment loan percentage or even on Credit Karma?? I don't know what you mean by installment loan. All I know is that I have a loan active on my report.

To the super contributor who replied, yes, I'm aware FICO is way different than Credit Karma. I use Credit Karma because it gives more detailed information.

[Anonymous]

And you mean the intallment loan is at 100% because it's over the original amount borrowed?

[Medic981]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Is there a place in the FICO website to find the installment loan percentage or even on Credit Karma?? I don't know what you mean by installment loan. All I know is that I have a loan active on my report.

To the super contributor who replied, yes, I'm aware FICO is way different than Credit Karma. I use Credit Karma because it gives more detailed information.

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An installment loan is a car, home, student, personal, share secured, or credit building loan. 

[Anonymous]

Ok...

So, the car loan and personal loan are both hurting my scores...

[Pikaboo-icu]

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@Anonymous wrote:

And you mean the intallment loan is at 100% because it's over the original amount borrowed?

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Yes..

Credit Karma is good for looking at reports.

If the scores you gave are not true Fico (as CK is not) you may obtain your scores for $1 from here:  https://www.creditchecktotal.com/homepage8

Just cancel before 7 days trial is up. 

You're in good hands with the advisers that are helping you on this thread.

CHEERS

[Anonymous]

As Pikaboo mentions, Karma is awesome for pulling your reports.  You can see fresh versions of them as often as once a week.

Karma's scores are worthless, however, because no CC issuer or lender will use them in making decisons about whether to approve you for a loan or card.  Since they can vary a lot from FICO scores (which is what your lenders will likely use) they are best ignored.

Karma's summary page can be misleading for newcomers as well, since it will often imply that you have a perfect payment history when you do not, or give misleading information about your profile age.  It's sometimes wrong about CC utilization as well.

But use it for pulling frequent reports and it is great.

I would not worry much about the amounts you owe on your loans.  Some FICO models don't care about that at all.  And for those models that do, the most points you could losing is about 35 (compared with having your loans open but with a small positive balance, which is when you get the biggest boost).

BTW, strictly speaking, the term in question is installment account, not installment loan.  That's because all loans are paid in installments (i.e. all loans are installment accounts).   There are, however, some installment accounts that are not loans, like an auto lease.  The lease will be treated much like a loan, however.

When all of your CC debt is paid off (aside from a small amount on one card) you can begin thinking about paying down loans if you want.  Paying down CC debt will improve your score much more than paying down loans.