@Anonymous wrote:I have a little extra money and would like to improve my FICO score.
I can either a). Reduce my credit card utilization from almost 100% to 87%, or b). Try to take care of 2 small disputed medical bills via PFD.
I'm sure the two disputed medical accounts being reported as in collection play a slightly larger role in holding down my FICO to a 610. Yet from just a pure financial standpoint, it makes more sense to pay down revolving credit, since it would reduce interest expense and minimum payments due. Lastly, if I were ever to ever fall on hard times again, I'd rather have my credit cards paid and in good standing than an account that is already in collections.
I read on this forum that payment history accounts for 35% of FICO score, while debt utilazation is around 30%. They are both showing as a C according to Credit Karma (which I was told on here never to pay attention to). This would suggest it's worth taking the risk and eliminating the accounts in collection first. I just want to make sure that experts here would agree with that.
Thanks,
My goodness CK. 100% UTIL is only a C?
Honestly, they are both wreaking havoc on your score. Getting PFDs for your collections is harder than simply playing down your UTIL, so I would start there. You would probably see more of an immediate effect by getting rid of those, although they both certainly need to be address.
If possible, I would get rid of the collections now, and then pay down UTIL as you are able.
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the advice NewGuy.
Yeah, CK is totally messed up. They're showing UTIL as 49% when it's actually closer to +90%. So not sure how they're calculating that. I'd really like to start paying down my credit card debt for practical purposes, which is why I'm asking this question.
It also turns out that I may have a problem doing a PFD with one of the accounts. IC Systems is telling me they do not do PFDs under ANY circumstances, period! They are however, offering to delete the account 30 days after receiving payment, but are NOT willing to put that in writing! I'm not at all sure I should trust them though. So this throws a wrench into my plans :/
I responded to your other post on this development. See that, but in short I'd still probably go for it.