Stagnant credit score :(

[Anonymous]

Hi Petrichor!  My comments in blue below.

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@Anonymous wrote:

I wasn't aware that not carrying a balance on my FICO would cause the score to drop so that's new and I will definitely be employing that method. So thank you. 

Strictly speaking you don't ever have to carry a balance.  Carrying happens when the statement says you owe $400 and then you pay only $100 (for example).  The extra $300 is carried over to the next statement and you pay interest on it.  As long as you pay whatever the statement said you owe, then you pay no interest and are not carrying a balance. 

To report a balance simply means that the card had a positive balance when the statement printed.  That positive balance gets reported to the three bureaus.

I have a 0% utilization meaning I don't know anything on any of my cards. My cards are Visa Mastercard and American Express I have not yet gotten a Discover card but I don't really need one it sounds like.

my student loans that I have are relatively low and I can pay them down quite easily. I've neglected my initial student loan because it is my oldest credit line. The new student loan I can pay off right now with no real worry, I just wasn't sure if I needed to make a few payments first to get credit out of it or not. 

Paying your loans down is a great idea.  It will improve your score and sharply reduce the amount of interest you pay each month.  Paying them off, however, can hurt your score.  I would if I were you start by working toward paying each loan down to 8% of its original balance.  Look to see what the next payment due date is when you do that.  One of your loan handlers may well respond by pushing the next due date way into the future.  If so, cancel your monthly payment and set up a payment with a checking account where you "push" $2 into the loan account as a payment each month -- unless the balance is so small at 8% that the $2 monthly payment will cause the loan to pay off too quickly.  You ideally want to have one open loan that is mostly paid off at all times, to optimize your FICO 8 score. 

I had 2 derogs from way back in 2013. I was 18 and apparently had 2 low balance doctor visit bills. When I found out about them in 2016 I paid them and was under the assumption they are no longer on my score. All apart from the FICO 8 if I'm not mistaken. Not entirely sure why that is the only one not disregarding them but the others seem to have stricken them.

You should pull all three credit reports (EQ, TU, EX) and carefully inspect every account and record on it to discover what lates, collections, chargeoffs, etc. might be on the report.  Ignore the high-level summary that Karma provides.  If you need help finding reliable and free tools to get your reports, let us know.

So far you guys have been really helpful and I appreciate your tips! 

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[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I wasn't aware that not carrying a balance on my FICO would cause the score to drop so that's new and I will definitely be employing that method. So thank you. 

I have a 0% utilization meaning I don't know anything on any of my cards. My cards are Visa Mastercard and American Express I have not yet gotten a Discover card but I don't really need one it sounds like.

my student loans that I have are relatively low and I can pay them down quite easily. I've neglected my initial student loan because it is my oldest credit line. The new student loan I can pay off right now with no real worry, I just wasn't sure if I needed to make a few payments first to get credit out of it or not. 

I had 2 derogs from way back in 2013. I was 18 and apparently had 2 low balance doctor visit bills. When I found out about them in 2016 I paid them and was under the assumption they are no longer on my score. All apart from the FICO 8 if I'm not mistaken. Not entirely sure why that is the only one not disregarding them but the others seem to have stricken them.

So far you guys have been really helpful and I appreciate your tips! 

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1) Fico 9 ignores all paid collections regardless of dollar amount. It appears Fico 9 considers all unpaid collections regardless of dollar amount but, treats medical collections less hrshly.

2) Fico 8 ignores all collections less than $100 regardless of paid/unpaid status. Fico 8 does not differentiate between paid/unpaid.

3) The older Fico 98 and Fico 04 models used for mortgages and some other types of loans consider all collections equally bad whether paid/unpaid and regardless of dollar amount. However, there may be some but, not much, lessening of effect over time.

As others have said you need to allow a balance to report on a credit card to avoid the: "No recent revolving account activity" negative reason score ding (typically associated with a 15 to 20 point drop)

[Asilomar]

By the way, OP, great username. I love that smell, too. Though who doesn’t.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

100% payment history - Utilization across 6 cards is at 0% - 0 derogatory marks - AAoA is 1 year 2 months - Oldest Account 4 years 6 months - 10 Total accounts - 1 Closed - 9 open - 3 Installment loans (car and 2 student) - 7 Hard inquries (4 should drop off in September this year as they remained from when I was car shopping)

Any suggestions as to how I would go about getting my credit up from a 722 Fico 9, 739 TU, 716 EQ and only a 677 Fico 8?

These numbers seem to never go higher, no matter what I do. I did recently have a 739 Fico 9 but a student loan from this past semester showed up and it dropped 17 points. The other scores were unaffected or had a -1 point change.

Reading these forums along with other sites I've been noticing the two major things a profile like mine needs and that is TIME, time will give me the better scores slowly. As well as a Morgage loan. I am not at a point in my life where I am home shopping. It is my hope that before I commit to buying a home I have a 740+ Fico score so I can secure a decent/prime rate.

I am no credit expert, I am just learning. Any advice would help tons!

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1. Have all but one of your revolving accounts report a zero balance, and one account report a small balance which you pay off after the statement cuts.

2. Pay your installment loans down, so that the total of balances is 9% or less of the total of original loan amounts.

3. Avoid hard pulls.