Hello! My comments below in blue.
@techcrium wrote:
Equifax: 653
Where are you getting this score?
You might want to consider getting your three FICO 8 scores from Credit Check Total using their $1 trial.
8% utilization ratio
How many credit cards do you have? Do any of them have a balance of 50% of that card's credit limit or more?
4 inquiries last 2 years
The only inquiries that will affect your score are those in the last 12 months.
13 years credit history
average age of accounts 4 yrs 6 months
What tool are you using to get these age-related factors? Is it Credit Karma by any chance? If so, you need to use a different tool, since Karma's age calculations ignore closed accounts.
I forgot about a $2 dollar payment in Jan 2017. It's been over 2 years now...
Do you mean a $2 late payment? Late payments belong to a class of credit events called "derogs" or "negatives." These are lates, chargeoffs, collections, liens, public records, and bankruptcies. Lates are the most common kind of derogs. It is likely that you have more than one derog on your reports and they have a huge effect on your score. Credit Karma is unfortunately not a good tool for detecting these. The 3B report at Credit Check Total should be reliable, and even better would be the reports you get from annualcreditreport.com.
Top priority for you should be pulling reliable reports and going over them with a fine tooth comb to find all derogs. Then make a list of them and circle back with us. Include the "severity" of each derog. In the case of lates, that means stating whether it is listed as Day 30, Day 60, Day 90 (etc.). Also indicate when it happened.
What's impacting:
- Number of trades with 60 days or worse within the last 2 years.
- Worst rating ever on monoline credit cards trades.
- Worst rating ever on national credit cards trades.
Where are you getting these three factors? I have never heard this language in the official negative reason statements that come with FICO scores. I also have never heard reason statements refer to "trades." Do you mean tradelines? That would be the same thing as accounts.
Useful to you would be to use a reliable standard tool like Credit Check Total and then copy down the exact language you see being used in its negative reason statements. It should give you four. These will be the top four things holding down your score.
