Freecreditreport.com's score is not comparable to any of FICO's algorithms. Any confluence is coincidence unfortunately. Which score was explicitly the 615 and what were the other two? The three are all slightly different currently, and they do have different weightings for things anecdotally.
As for the derogatories / baddies, different types are counted differently against you. Revolving utilization on credit cards, is different than late payments on a credit card are different than any sort of collections including medical ones, which are in turn different from judgements, tax liens, and BK's though these latter 3 might all count similarly on the scorecard: hard for us to know for certain.
The easiest path for improving your FICO score: when you can afford to pay that other collection, if they'll delete, absolutely take that offer; without those debts assuming your credit card debt isn't substantial you're 720ish easy.
Speaking of which, do you have any credit card debt reported on your sheet? If you do, that may be hurting you both in terms of aggregate utilization and in number of tradelines reporting a balance.
Beyond that the only thing it sounds like you're missing is installment history: after you get the collections taken care of, I'd recommend seeing about getting a secured installment loan vis a vis "Credit Builder" loan (see DCU for an example of that, or you can secure a loan against a CD or similar from any number of lenders) but realistically the most important thing you can do is get the medical collections taken care of.
@kleahc wrote:Thank you for responding!
The mid-615 here at MyFico was the Equifax (I also pulled Experian here, which was a 639. Ididn't pull Transunion because the one collection agency that has my debt does not report to them, and so that score has remined in the 680 range this whole time)
My credit card debt (3 cards) is kept well under 10%, but I use each one once per month to keep the balances current (this is from the loan officer working with me on the possibility of a motgage application in the future)
On the installment loan, yeah, I did have the car loan, but paid it off early, so that is not longer open.
Thank you so much for your help! I keep reading these boards and trying to educate myself. This is a really confusing topic!!
Late reply, was out of town for several days.
Your LO isn't doing you right: of those 3 cards, pay two of them off completely, the other you want reporting a balance but a small one, between a few bucks and call it <9% of your credit limit on that card.
That is an easily addressible thing on your credit report. Generally it's accomplished by simply paying before the due date: still use the cards to keep them active, but simply change your payment schedule a bit. This is typically close to optimal for most people from a FICO scoring perspective, and absolutely should be done pre-mortgage qualification.
If you have an installment loan already on the report, ignore what I suggested getting another one: you've already hit the major portion (having any installment history on your report) and you're talking a few points extra potentially with an open one reporting: if you're in the run up to a mortgage (less than a year) don't open a new account unless you have to.