Tips to bump up score little bit

[Anonymous]

I am wondering what my strategy should be to bump it up a little. I looked and consistently myfico shows that even a small payment/balance decrease bumps it up but even a small charge of like $15.00 drops a few points. Hence, I'm running all my cards at 0.

Here's what I don't get: a mortgage hard pull INCREASED my score 11 pts!!? Can anyone explain this???

The exact same item reporting in March bumped it 8 points and then in June dropped it 11.

I'm losing it here trying to understand.

We are tight for an FHA so the slightest change could tip us.

I have some lates being deleted, hopefully that will bump it up again.

[gdale6]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am wondering what my strategy should be to bump it up a little. I looked and consistently myfico shows that even a small payment/balance decrease bumps it up but even a small charge of like $15.00 drops a few points. Hence, I'm running all my cards at 0.

Here's what I don't get: a mortgage hard pull INCREASED my score 11 pts!!? Can anyone explain this???

The exact same item reporting in March bumped it 8 points and then in June dropped it 11.

I'm losing it here trying to understand.

We are tight for an FHA so the slightest change could tip us.

I have some lates being deleted, hopefully that will bump it up again.

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All revovling cards at 0 is costing you Fico points this is well known and verified. An inquiry never causes a score increase something else changed and it might not be readily visible (AAoA, certain account milestone)

[NRB525]

If all your CC are reporting zero, that will be a negative. The issue about going from $0 to $15 reporting, that relates sometimes to a new card becoming active. All cards reporting zero, is a different class of negative so you want at least one reporting.

To get the best feedback, it helps to provide as much information as possible:

What are the scores you are trying to improve now? Where are they from, do you know the algorithm being used, FICO version?

Are all credit cards reporting zero balances? Can you list out the cards, their limits and last statement balance?

Derogatories? When did they start? How many? Accounts they are on? Things you've done to mitigate them? When do you expect deletion? Are all derogatories being deleted or only some of them, some will remain?

[_NERD]

App-O-Rama. J/K

[Anonymous]

Okay, thanks

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@NRB525 wrote:

If all your CC are reporting zero, that will be a negative. The issue about going from $0 to $15 reporting, that relates sometimes to a new card becoming active. All cards reporting zero, is a different class of negative so you want at least one reporting.

To get the best feedback, it helps to provide as much information as possible:

What are the scores you are trying to improve now? Where are they from, do you know the algorithm being used, FICO version?

Are all credit cards reporting zero balances? Can you list out the cards, their limits and last statement balance?

Derogatories? When did they start? How many? Accounts they are on? Things you've done to mitigate them? When do you expect deletion? Are all derogatories being deleted or only some of them, some will remain?

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Trying to improve EQ mainly, that's what they're using for our FHA mortgage.

I am not sure what FICO version. It might be the old version. They were at 635-638.

XPN Fair Issac - 669.

Suddenly, we had a drop on Equifax only (of course, since Murphy's Law) and a few days ago when I pulled at EQ it said 601. That could hurt us. However, MyFico still lists it at 635.

We have 2 CC: First Premier and Credit1. $700 & $450 - both 0 balances.

I looked through MyFico Alerts -- anytime we carried even the tiniest balance, like $18.00 it was a red alert -- decreasing our score.

I've had good luck with derogs -- thank you MyFico users! I just learned about EE and got a baddie CO taken off. I am working through the others. Cap1 just agreed to remove lates -- they said it takes about 3 days to show up on CR. I'm hoping that improves our score.

3 collection accounts were paid or old and they agreed to delete -- yet they are on there. I've called them at least 4x and they keep saying "oh it's going to be deleted" and then it isn't. So I'm following up on those.

It seems like in looking through MyFico -- the only thing that bumped us was paying down our balances to 0. I haven't seen a bump yet for getting a CO removed. FP offered their $100 CLI increase for a $25.00 fee but I'm nervous about doing that right around underwriting. I can't risk an HP.

I'm going to pull my EQ later this week, hopefully some of my hard work will bump it up a little.

Cap1 accidentally put a $59.00 fee on an account that is "revoked" and so it looked like max UTI -- I think that's what dropped it. They credited back the fee but I'm like thanks, our score dropped 15 pts because of it. One rep told me the 0 balance/credit reports right away to the bureaus, the other said it doesn't report until the end of the month. Hopefully that will bump EQ back up again.

Anything else I can do? I know ppl advocate carrying a small less than 10% balance on the cards but in my history I haven't seen that bump the score.

I had nothing and then a mortgage inquiry and got an alert it bumped 11 pts. I know ppl say it's not supposed to -- maybe it was a trigger, I don't know.

[Anonymous]

any advice??

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Anything else I can do? I know ppl advocate carrying a small less than 10% balance on the cards but in my history I haven't seen that bump the score.

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Carrying a balance will not help you in any way. 

Just for clarity, here is an example of what carrying a balance involves.  Suppose you have a Visa and the billing cycle ends on the 5th with a statement being cut on that date.  Suppose that the "amount owed" on that statement (aka the balance) is $400 with a minimum payment of $30.  Suppose also that you pay $100 (more than the minimum payment but less than the full balance).  You have then paid $100 with $300 being carried over to the next billing cycle and you will pay interest on that $300. 

This behavior (carrying a balance) is contrasted with paying in full (PIF) which would have meant paying the full $400 in this case.

PIFing does not give you any extra points, nor does it help you to carry a balance. FICO does not reward either behavior in the current models, though in the future it will likely begin to penalize carrying a balance (but that would be years from now).

When you say that people advocate carrying a small balance, they probably meant that it helps to have a card reporting a small balance.  That's different from carrying it.  In the example given above, the credit card company REPORTED the balance of $400 to the CRAs.  This is true whether you later paid it in full or paid it in part and carried the remaining balance.

Currently you are REPORTING zero balances on all your cards.  As the folks on this thread have indicated, that harms your score.  In order to maximize your score, you want to report a positive balance on exactly one card ($0 on all other cards) and that positive balance should be less than 9% of that card's credit limit.

The good news is that you should be seeing a score increase from many of the actions you are taking: changing your credit card balances, eliminating some of your derogs, etc.

[Anonymous]

I see. Thanks for that clarification!

Boy, it's complicated.

[Anonymous]

Wish it were simpler, pal!  Good to see that you are working hard to understand how it all works.  Strongly urge you to keep doing that and to use solid sources, e.g. like the LEARN ABOUT SCORES link at the top of this screen.  Getting advice from strangers on internet boards is great (obviously I can't think it's a completely bad idea since I am one of the people giving advice).  But that advice should be understood against a background knowledge obtained from reliable well put together Credit 101 articles of the sort you can find on major reliable sites (here, credit.com, etc.)

Is it clear to you how to control what each of your CCs report to the three CRAs?  I.e. when we say that you need to make sure that all your CCs but one report a $0 balance, do you know how to do that?

[Anonymous]

No, I'm embarassed to admit! I have a masters degree too. LOL.

So does it mean that I have to find out when they update the bureaus? Before my monthly payment I have to make sure I don't pay it down to 0 on one. So leave a little on there, less than 9%?

Holy cow. That's going to require some precise math.

I notice even a tiny balance like $16 gives me a red Alert on MyFico and my score drops a little.

I have a FP card $700 limit and a Credit1 $450. They are at 0 reporting. I put a $26.00 charge on FP. 0 on the other.

When I make the minimum payment, I need to keep some on there and not pay down to 0? I'm thinking.

Do the CC update the bureaus only at the end of every month?

I am reading all the articles and learning.