Updated! Need to raise my Transunion FICO 4 score - help please!

[Anonymous]

(Score updates are in later messages in thread)

Input and help is appreciated!

After a serious illness in 2018-19 and some general carelessness, I have been working on cleaning up my finances and credit.  I'd like to get a HELOC. The loan officer at my credit union told me that to qualify for the HELOC with a competitive rate I need a Transunion mortgage score (FICO 4) of 640.  I pulled the myFICO 3B and that score is 639. So the 640 is my first goal but I really want to clean up my credit and get my scores up as fast as possible now that I am a fully functioning adult again.

So I will give you my info based on what I've seen requested from and also what I have done so far after reading some threads on here I will put in bold.

FICO 3B 6/6/20

Score 8 - Equifax: 651, Transunion: 650, Experian: 666 (Transunion FICO 4: 639)

Total utilization 61% of available revolving credit After paying down the CC's this month, I *think* I'm around 15% utilization now

Ave age of accounts: 8 yrs, 4 mos

Age of oldest acct: 17 yrs, 8 mos

Age of most recent opened acct: 1 yr, 3 mos (a student loan for grad school)

Inquiries: 3 total; 2 in 8/19, 1 in 11/19 (all are only reporting for Experian though, nothing shows for Transunion)

Debt Details & Baddies

- Collection acct - assigned from a charge off 6/23/17. Has been on a monthly pmt plan. Original balance $5346, paid down to $421 Paid in full this month

- Student loans  ~115k 

- Student loans ~20k

- Student loans ~84k consolidated with wife, she pays as they are 90% hers (ahem, "should pay" :/) - She had a 90 day late report 12/19, and then some 120+ lates in 2016 and 2017 that show up on my report b/c we consolidated together back when married people could do that.  Stupid stupid stupid.

- Auto loan #1 $17,778/$24,504 - 30 day lates 5/19, 6/18, 7/18, 8/18, 11/18

- Auto loan #2 $10,100/$31,438 - 30 day late 5/18 6/18, 7/18, 8/18

- One Main personal loan $6767/$11,935 - no derogatory info

- Avant personal loan $132/$10,000 - no derogatory info Paid in full 6/24

- Credit First CC $0/$1200; 0% util  - 30 day late 6/16; 60 day late 5/14; 90 day late 8/'14

- Cap One Menards CC $458/$1000; 46% util - no derogs Paid in full plus about 15% extra to cover interest 6/22 (0% util!)

- Td Bank Target CC $904/$1000; 90% util - 30 day late Nov '17 Paid in full plus about $15 extra to cover interest 6/25 (0% util!)

- Cap One CC $1825/$2000; 91% util - 30 day late 5/19; 60 day late 04/15 Paid down to $544 on 6/25 (27% util)

- BFG CU CC $1791/$2000; 90% util - 30 day late 12/19 (disputing)  Paid down to $533 on 6/10 (27% util)

- Village Capital personal home mortgage $91,980/$107,760 - 30 day late 11/18; 60 day late 12/18

- Provident Funding rental home mortgage $110,798/$116,379 in 6/07; This is my worst acct other than wife's student loans.  My last late pmt was 5/19.  It reported 30 or 60 days late from Oct '18 to May '19. I missed a pmt and didn't catch it back up even though I did pay every month. (I also had a 90 day late in May '15 and modified the loan at that point, which is noted in the comments on the report.) What I don't understand is that under "Worst Deliquency" it says 120 days past due for Equifax and Transunion and 180 days deliquent for Experian, but there are no 120 or 180 day deliquents noted in the degoratory event details? I am not sure what to make of that. I definitely don't think I was 180 days late. Could use some advice on how to handle that.

Ok so my questions:

After paying off about 80% of my credit card debt this month, as well as the remainder of the collection acct, what do you think are the odds that my Transunion FICO 4 score goes above a 640 in July? Is there anything else I can do right now to improve the odds of that happening? I know paying down the credit cards helps, but I already dipped into my savings to pay off what I did. I can probably swing another $500 towards them in July. Could maybe do it now and get under the 9% utilization benchmark, but I'm also getting antsy at my savings acct being lower than I like. It might be worth it though if it I knew it would make the difference in getting that score up enough.

 What else would you recommend I do to improve my scores in general? 

I see that people write goodwill letters, but how do you know where to send those and who to address them to?

How long does it take for the late pmt dings to stop affecting the scores? How long will the collection acct continue to hurt my score?

[atarvuzdar]

If I am counting correctly, you went from 4/5 cards with balances down to 2/5 with balances, and the two with balances are now under 28.9%. This, along with the fact that you paid your Target CC completely off when it was above 90% util previously should get you the points you are looking for. Had you gone to 1/5 cards with balances that would have been better but I don't think that's going to keep you from getting to where you want to be in terms of score.

[Anonymous]

Yep you counted right.

I actually did it in steps. Paid down all 4 cards with balances under 30% (I didn't see the 28.9% benchmark here until afterwards), then paid more to take Target and Menards to zero and Cap One and BFGCU cards under 28.9%.

Next month would you recommend paying one of the cards down to zero, rather than splitting $600 equally between the two cards?

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Yep you counted right.

I actually did it in steps. Paid down all 4 cards with balances under 30% (I didn't see the 28.9% benchmark here until afterwards), then paid more to take Target and Menards to zero and Cap One and BFGCU cards under 28.9%.

Next month would you recommend paying one of the cards down to zero, rather than splitting $600 equally between the two cards?

---

Yes as far as the mortgage scores are concerned, getting another revolver down to zero balance is helpful.

As to your negatives, I would just send verification letters to the credit bureaus, and hope they precipitate some of the negatives falling off.

[Anonymous]

Update as of 7/1/20

My transunion FICO 4 went from a 639 to a 674, and that's with only about half of what I paid down reporting yet. So mission accomplished .

Here's what changed from the 6/6 report to the 7/1 report:

- Target card went from about 90% util to 27%

- BFG card went from about 90% util to 29% (this is b/c I thought I only needed to get it under 30% before I joined these forums)

- Regular on time pmts for other accts that didn't significantly change balances.

- Overall utilization went from 61% to 43%

Lucky for me, the transunion 4 score, the one my CU uses, was by far the biggest jump in points.

The FICO 8's: TU 650 to 654 (+4); Eq 651 to 651 (no change!); Ex 666 to 678 (+12)

Mortgage Scores: TU 4 639 to 674 (+35!); Eq 5 598 to 621 (+23); Ex 2 585 to 586 (+1)

This is what I'm still waiting on to update:

- Target card paid down to zero (at 27% util on 7/2 report)

- Menards card paid down to zero (at 41% util on 7/2 report)

- BFG card paid down to 27% util (shows 90% util on the 7/2 report)

- Cap One card paid down to 27% util (shows 29% on the 7/2 report)

- Old collection acct paid off (fyi it was already reporting every month b/c I was on a pmt plan)

So now I'm thinking I might pay the BFG card down to zero and see what happens once that plus all of the above reports. Maybe I'll be able to qualify for a better interest rate.  Getting over a TU 640 has me at prime plus half a percent.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Update as of 7/1/20

My transunion FICO 4 went from a 639 to a 674, and that's with only about half of what I paid down reporting yet. So mission accomplished .

Here's what changed from the 6/6 report to the 7/1 report:

- Target card went from about 90% util to 27%

- BFG card went from about 90% util to 29% (this is b/c I thought I only needed to get it under 30% before I joined these forums)

- Regular on time pmts for other accts that didn't significantly change balances.

- Overall utilization went from 61% to 43%

Lucky for me, the transunion 4 score, the one my CU uses, was by far the biggest jump in points.

The FICO 8's: TU 650 to 654 (+4); Eq 651 to 651 (no change!); Ex 666 to 678 (+12)

Mortgage Scores: TU 4 639 to 674 (+35!); Eq 5 598 to 621 (+23); Ex 2 585 to 586 (+1)

This is what I'm still waiting on to update:

- Target card paid down to zero (at 27% util on 7/2 report)

- Menards card paid down to zero (at 41% util on 7/2 report)

- BFG card paid down to 27% util (shows 90% util on the 7/2 report)

- Cap One card paid down to 27% util (shows 29% on the 7/2 report)

- Old collection acct paid off (fyi it was already reporting every month b/c I was on a pmt plan)

So now I'm thinking I might pay the BFG card down to zero and see what happens once that plus all of the above reports. Maybe I'll be able to qualify for a better interest rate.  Getting over a TU 640 has me at prime plus half a percent.

---

Awesome! Good job.

[Anonymous]

You have made good progress.  I have nothing to add to what others have already stated regarding your payoff plan. It is great to get things back on track.  This would also be a good time to sit down with the wife and figure out what is causing you both to have repeated late payments.  Seems that you keep separate finances.  If that works for you, consider becoming each others accountability partner.  Make sure you are each checking every payment box each month.  

[Anonymous]

Hi and thank you for your feedback.  Yes, it feels good to be on track financially but more than that, it is good to be healthy. It isn't hard to figure out what the problem was with paying bills. I think I mentioned in my first post that the vast majority of my issues (2018-19) were due to my pretty serious illness and surgery.  We were just hanging on for a long time, and frankly I'm surprised things don't look worse. Since May 2019, we've been doing pretty well. 

Otherwise, I have maybe 5 dings from just carelessness over 10 years or so with two exceptions.  One is my wife's student loans - (no, we do not do separate money. We've been married almost 18 years and share everything including money.) I handle most of the bills and stuff but she pays her student loan from her "incidentals/fun money" acct b/c when she started grad school, her parents told her they'd help pay.  And they faithfully give her money every month.  Now why that money didn't always end up at the lender, only my wife knows... I'M KIDDING of course she gave me a reason and apologized. And I'm not about to be condescending to my wife and tell her I want to take over paying that bill to make sure it actually gets paid. Having trust and forgiveness is what gets you to 18 years.

The 2nd big mistake is the old collection acct. I had to drop a semester of grad school and registrar told me it wouldn't cause me to have my loan pulled. Well it did, the school billed me for it, and I was so pissed I just didn't pay. I played chicken with them and lost and ended up in collections. But I set up a pmt plan right away and took care of it.

Honestly until recently I just didn't put much thought to what a late pmt did to my credit score. I made up the pmt if I missed it. I got loans when I needed to, at pmts I could afford. I didn't really care about paying the cards down. The minimum pmts were pretty low, and I found better things to do with my cash. It probably sounds odd to people who watch every point, but that's how I was. I save 20% of my income towards retirement (retiring at age 53, here I come!) so I could've paid my debt off earlier.  I just didn't, which is dumb, but here I am now, cleaning things up. And that is enough introspection from me for the rest of the year ha!

[Anonymous]

Sharing these updates b/c I liked reading updates in other threads.

As of 7/14/20

- Still waiting on the two CC's (Menards and Target) to report the zero balances

- Cap One just reported the 27% utilization

- BFG hasn't updated from the 29% to 27%

- Overall utilization is reporting between 43 to 48% depending the agency.

Also - most of my 30 day lates have aged past 12 months as of June, although some of the reporting is a couple of months behind.

Current FICO 8 scores

TU 650 to 654 to 664 (+14 from 6/6/20)

Eq 651 to 651 to 651 (Crazy still no change! Equfax must have a very low opinion of paying down CC debt!)

Ex 666 to 678 to 702 (+36)

I don't have updated mortgage scores yet. I might pay to check them after all the CC's are reporting the correct balances (or zero balances) to see if it might affect my interest rate on the loan. Otherwise I don't get the included subscription update until Aug. 6th.

[Anonymous]

As of 7/21/20

- Still waiting on Target CC to report a zero balance (currently reports 27% util)

- Cap One reports 26% utilization

- BFG is reporting 27%

- Overall utilization is reporting between 15 to 18% depending the agency.

Also - most of my 30 day lates have aged past 12 months as of June, although some of the reporting is a couple of months behind.

FICO 8 scores since June 6th

TU 650 to 654 to 664 to 666(+16 from 6/6/20)

Eq 651 to 651 to 651 to 707 (+56 hello!)

Ex 666 to 678 to 706 (+40)

Mortgage scores

TU (FICO 4) 639 to 659 (+20)

EQ (FICO 5) 598 to 647 (+49!)

Ex (FICO 2) 585 to 610 (+25)