In April 2013, I hit rough times and had accounts go into collections, a car repo'd, and a few charge-offs.
I didnt really bother with credit until August of 2014 when I applied for an apartment and was denied and realized I had to get my stuff together. In December of 2014 I got a secured Wells Fargo credit card with FICOs around 580. I worked hard hitting this forum and sent out letters to the lenders requesting them to remove the negative accounts and the late payments. I was fairly successful and to this day only have 1 collection that has since been paid in full reporting from May 2013 and a 90 day late payment from April 2013.
Since I opened that Wells Fargo card in December of 2014 I have a spotless credit report. No late payments, nothing at all. I currently have 2 inquiries reporting on all three reports. Utilization of $140,000 in credit is at 1% with only $700 reporting (0% promo). Average age of accounts is almost to 3 years. I feel like its not a terrible report, I know it has the murky stuff from 5 years ago, but you couldnt ask for a better report with my recent history.
Despite the perfect past 4 years, my scores have really stayed the same. Ive gone from a 580 FICO to just a 664. I checked my Discover Scorecard and noticed this time last year I was at a 663. One point in a full year. On my Amex FICO score, I went from 666 to 664. Down 2 points, only thing that could have caused this was my only installment loan I had closed.
I see some others on here with similar stories but they go from low 500s to the mid 700s in a year what am I doing wrong?
My wife had a 30 day late payment report in 2016 and her scores dropped from a 730 to a 670 and in a year she was already back up to the 720s.
Is the collection from 2013 and the 90 day late really affecting me that bad? My scores have really stayed around 660 for two full years with nothing but positive reporting on my reports. What should I do differently to break that 700 mark.
