Hi, I'm just trying to better guage how scoring works even when I do things right.
TU and Ex are in the mid 700's, but Equifax is at 619.. more than 120 or so points lower.
Information in all three agencies' reports collected here at myfico.com appear identical.
The good facts:
1) I've never been late even 1 day on any card or account in my entire life, nor ever missed any payment in my entire life.
2) I have credit cards with limits of 40,000 and 25,000 and 15,000 and 7,500 and 1,000.
3) I have balances on those cards of 900, 0, 1,200, 150,, and 0. Each month balances get up to about this, and then are paid off in full.
4) I have mortgages paid in full, car loans (1 open and 1 paid), a couple store credit cards with zero balances never used, and some regular credit cards used---making a healthy mix of credit use.
The bad facts:
1) I rate shop fairly often. Meaning that when a credit card company says we won't know what the interest rate is until you're approved, I may apply but then decline to open the account after they've processed my app. The result: I have over a dozen hard inquiries listed in each agency report. I've applied for credit as recently as two to three times this month alone.
2) While I paid off one car loan, the more recent one is only two months old and so very little of it has been paid back.
3) I paid off my mortgages in full after only a year's worth of history... so not much history.
4) My total credit history is barely 2 or so years old... basically nothing exists before that because I used to pay cash for everything.
So I guess I'm at a loss as to why I'm rated so very badly by Equifax at 619 and not particularly great by the others. I have over 90k in credit card limits I barely use any at all. While I've sometimes charged almost 20,000 to a card in the past (about 5 months ago; some really big purchases), I then paid it all off in two months.. and today I even keep a low <10% balance since then and it hasn't helped all that much.. although did bring Equifax out from the mid/low 500s into low 600's.
What more can I do?
Thanks for any insight as to what's going on here... thanks!