New to Board, need Help.

[mrlimo]

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lanah wrote:

Yeah,, I was so happy to get that email from Score watch that said "you're score has increased [+22], and that was a week after getting one that said it increased [+4]. I thought it would just increase little by little. I didn't know it would jump that much in a month. it feels so good to actually know and see what your score is doing.

it seems like everyone has a lower score with transunion. I won't worry about it now since the banks have told me that I need my middle score to be @ least 660 to get a better interest rate. Paying all of that cash out has been hard but the way I look at it now, I'm paying for all the useless spending I did in college.

Once I get ALL of my credit cards down to 0% should I close the newest one or leave them all open.  I wiwll leave a 1% balance on my oldest card. Somone on here said that has helped others on here.

I did call about getting a contact person to send a GW letter to and the credit person said on the phone that they don't accept them so there's no use of sending it. She was quite rude. She actually said "just be glad you have the car payed off". I may send one anyway, just to see.

Does getting a mortgage hurt your score or helps it. I would hate to do all of this and then get dropped down to 600 hundred again because of a mortgage.

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 As for the GW letter. All the information where to send it will be in your credit report or it at least should. They all seem to say that the don't accept them and still there is success with them. I am living proof I had a 30 day late with Chase Credit Card back in October 2004. I sent them a GW and that same month they removed it from my CR. I received an increase of (+36) on Equifax (+14) on Experian and (+19) TransUnion

As for the Mortgage it will probably dip a bit initially for new account, inq against cr's, possible re-bucketing. But after your payments start rolling in on time it will recover quickly and have a higher potential long term.

 The 9% util or lower also works to boost a few points so definitily use to your advantage. It was described to me as if you have 0% on all your cards it is hard to judge since it could be your afraid to use your credit therefore making you look more risky. If you have a very low utility it shows that you have good judgement and know how to use credit responsibly and there for less risk causing your scores to rise slightly. any little points you can get may be crucial when chasing your 660.

[lanah]

Thanks so much for all your help mrlimo and to others as well. This has already been a valuable learning experience. 

Today I made a payment to knockdown the last credit card with a 100% utility to 40% utility. I will also pay my paypal card completely off as well.  That will leave me with two cards @ 40% utility and two @ 0%. Money is starting to get tight now so it will be hard to reduce the other two to zero. I'll get at least one of them.  I'll start writing my letters now. I saw a thread on here with some examples.  I will use them as templates. thanks again.

[mrlimo]

Not a problem. I love to talk about the subject and I find that alot of peole in person look at you funny for bringing up the topic. I am just glad to see those scores rising. Keep informed how it goes when July's updates hit. Would love to here the great news you made the Magic Numbers your shooting for.

[lanah]

Another update:

This month (July)  I've paid 2286.72 of my 3500 total of credit card balances. That included paying three cards to zero and one card to 40% of balance.

My new scores have increased drastically. But Equifax which was my lowest score @ 603 is increasing the fastest while Experian and  Transunion are increasing at a slower pace. My goal was to get my scores @ or above 660. Amazingly Equifax has gone beyond that but the other two haven't. I have 800 dollars left to pay off my credit cards and really that is all I can do.  I've tried the good will letter to my former car loan but i haven't heard from them yet.  Anyway I'm still hoping for a 660 across the board since the mortgage companies take the middle score and not the highest score.

My new scores are posted below.

5/16/08 603 Ex, 611 EQ, 578 TR,  Goal All 660 in 3 months

6/23/08 629 Ex, 628 EQ, 610 TR,  Goal all 660 in 2 months I want to buy a house in August.

7/18/08 678 Ex, 653 EQ, 646 TR, Goal All 660 in 1 month,

[Anonymous]

Hi lanah....looks like you are doing well and making progress.   A couple of comments:

1) At the risk of sounding picky, we refer to TransUnion as "TU".  That is why you see everyone else saying TU rather than TR.  No biggie, just wanted to let you know.

2) Just start thinking about all the expenses that come with buying and owning a house.   Down payment, closing costs, real estate taxes, insurance, new furniture, appliances, curtains, paint, law mower, other unforseen expenses, etc.    You definitely want to have the necessary income to cover all of this AND keep your UTIL below 50% on each card (ideally pay in full to avoid interest charges).  Be sure you can handle it all before you take the plunge.  But best of luck!

I suspect you have begun to think of these things, but just want to throw that out there.  A friend of mine told me that I would spend $5k-$10k at Home Depot the first year or two of home ownership and he was right.

[lanah]

thanks for the advice,

As of now I'm looking at Town Houses so I don't have to worry about lawn equipment. But I do have to worry about HOA dues.  I've been looking but will probably wait until september to start loan shopping. I don't want to affect my credit scores now with inquiries when I'm not ready to buy anyway.

I should be able to post my last update in Mid august of which I want all my scores to be above 660. (fingers crossed.)

5/16/08 603 Ex, 611 EQ, 578 TR,  Goal All 660 in 3 months

6/23/08 629 Ex, 628 EQ, 610 TR,  Goal all 660 in 2 months

7/18/08 678 Ex, 653 EQ, 646 TR, Goal All 660 in 1 month,

Message Edited by lanah on 07-30-2008 09:13 AM

[mrlimo]

I see you have been doing well since I last checked in. Nice score increases. Best of luck on the last month in quest of that 660 across the board.

Did you ever look into each of your credit cards to see if a CLI would be a soft pull or no pull at all? If you would get a cli on all your cards that do a soft pull or use internal information. That could bring your util down without putting any cash out of pocket. With your scores rising lilke they are it would probably be beneficial to look into it a bit.

Message Edited by mrlimo on 07-31-2008 10:06 AM

[mrlimo]

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lanah wrote:

To the other guy,, can you explain your message a little more. I don't know want a GW is or a CLI. Also can you explain the last statement about the lowest interest card.

The credit cards I have are

Travelocity Visa

Orchard Bank Visa

Hsbc master card ( now paid off)

Paypal comsumer credit.

The biggest balance is on Travelocity  Visa. it will take me three months to pay this off.

The two  Non revolving loans I have are the college loan 22500, I pay about 340 a month on that and a personal loan 7010,, ( I original said 5000, I was worng on the balanc) The personal loan is with my credit union and it doesn't show on my credit for some reason. It's not a revolving line, I only pay a hundred a month on that.  I've been told by others to leave these loans alone other than paying the monthly on time. If I can get my credit scor eup to 660 i will then start to replenish my savings for the mortgage. with my new salary I can afford a nice house but my creditscore is putting me at an horrible rates, some banks i don't even qualify for one.

Oh also. i'm off of my mom's cards but like I said I haven't pulled my socre since 5-16-08. i did sign up for score watch for my 603 score so i can monitor it more or less that way.

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 Well Lanah, I posted in the credit card board your list of credit card, asking who they were backed by. Here is the list of cards with who they are backed by.

Travelocity Visa  Juniper

Orchard Bank Visa  HSBC

Hsbc master card   HSBC

Paypal comsumer credit. GEMB

According to the responses I have received it seems as if HSBC and GEMB pull a soft when requesting a CLI and Juniper I had no real responce on. Here is the link so you can read through it.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=creditcard&message.id=103782#M103782

I would call a back door number for HSBC and GEMB and ask when you could expect to see an automatic CLI on your accounts and ask if they would pull hard or soft if you wanted them to CLI your limits. If they pull a hard it could decrease your scores by 10 points or so for a hard inq. but if they soft or no pull there is no negative against you just positive for less UTIL %.

HSBC: 800-694-9222 (cust. service)
HSBC: 831-755-6699 (executive customer service)
HSBC(M.C.)888-385-8916

as far as GEMB or Juniper I could not locate any back door numbers for them so you would have to call the regular number on the card as speak to a csr.

[lanah]

Thanks so Much Mrlimo

Would it be benificial to get credit increases if most  of those account are @ zero. Now out of all of the cards I listed only one,, The Travelocity card has a balance.

I will post my august update soon. probably in two weeks but My score watch score has increased another 10 pointed to 688.  I wish you could get score watch for all three.

[lanah]

After so much hard work getting my scores up, the weirdest thing has happened to my scores. A month ago I had paid ALL of my credit cards off except one. Eq. had updated everything to date but Experiean and Transunion was behind in reporting two of the completely paid off credit cards. At the time I was fine with this because I thought once they actually reported the up to date Zero Balances my score will go up.

Well this month has come and Equifax who had already reported the updated balances a month ago Continues to Increase with no change in balances since July. That score has gone up to 700 when just three months ago it was 603

I order my Transunion report and Was happy to see that they have finally reported my updated balances , therefore showing all but one card with a zero balance. I take a look at my score and it actually WENT DOWN five points.  IT WENT DOWN. I compared this report with last months report and it's looks 100% better on all accounts and my score still went down.

Experian Did the same thing But the score stayed the same.

How can three reports reflect the EXACT SAME THING but have scores that are almost 50 points apart.

My goal was a 660 across the board but now I have 700, 653, and 641. Since mortgage companies take the middle score the 700 is useless. I will still get the horrible rate, plus I can't do anything else to improve the score.

I'm so Upset.