one collection tubed me

[Anonymous]

Long story short a cell phone company kept billing me 4 months after I closed my account by registered mail (I have the reciept)..... turned the disputed bill over to collections....... they reported it........ it's on all 3 CRA's

prior to this I'm told by my bank that my score was up around 800..... now it's 686

The only loan I have out is my mortgage which I want to refi

I have paid my CC's down to zero every month my entire life.... never a late payment...never late on ANYTHING

I haven't had a truck payment for maybe 5 years

I did have a Home equity line of credit I paid off almost 2 years ago

I have sent in a dispute to the 3 CRA's about the cell phone bill with a copy of my documentation but I have been told not to get my hopes up about them dropping it

I know that is the biggest thing impacting my score but I was also told that ONE collection shouldn't tube it that much

The bank sent me paperwork that the CRA's are also are dinging me for

"Length of time accounts have been established"....... I've had the same (2) CC's for over 10 years......... I did re-fi my mortgage 18 months ago but with the same bank

One says "too many inquiries in last 12 months"....... the only ones that should be on there are the one my bank asked for for the refi....... and my new cell phone plan last April

If the collection agency pulled my report that would be 3...... if they pulled it multiple times or the cell phone company AND the collection agency pulled it

can I dispute those?

the 4th factor is "lack of recent installment loan information"........ is this an error or do I need to get a short term loan and pay it off?

Is my mortgage an installment loan? I would think the Home Equity Loan I had should qualify.............. should I contact my credit union and make sure they reported I had that loand and paid it off?

last thing........ my CC balance gets up to $3-4000 during the month and then I pay it off...... but before my payment hits the balance might keep going up and hit $5-6K

I have an $11.7K available balance

If I stop using my CC and pay off the balance totally could I pick up the 15 points I need to re-fi my house?

Could I have incorrect information about the length of my credit history? I have car loans, mortgages, CC's, etc going back 30 years and other than this one stinking cell phone dispute my slate is 100% clean as far as I know

by the way the Collection Agency said that even if I pay the disputed $660 they will not remove the report with the CRA's

Thanks for any and all advice anyone can give me

I really need those 15 points ASAP!

[Anonymous]

OK I did a little more digging on my Experian free report

I have 24 accounts listed most are closed  car loans paid off old mortgage new CC number etc (they all say "never late")

I DO have almost 20 inquiries over the last year

One Credit card I do have did 3 account reviews in the last 3 weeks even though I've been with them for YEARS and have never failed to pay my bill in full in total every single month

Then I have inquiries from Chase (2) and Citi (5) even though I've never ever EVER had anything to do with these guys!

and my car insurance company who keeps trying to get me to get their credit card apparently pulls my report every quarter

are these enough to dock me points and how do I keep credit card companies I have absolutely NOTHING to do with from just requesting my credit report?

[Anonymous]

you need to only be concerned with the inquiries that are listed as shown to creditors--i.e. the ones that you authorized. 

There could be many that are just random credit card companies checking to see if they want to make you a credit card offer--those are not supposed to impact your score

[Anonymous]

also, one thing I recently learned was that you need to pay your balances down before the statement comes if you use your credit card and want it to be at zero or near zero on the credit reports.  The credit card company will simply report what is on your monthly statement--even if you pay it off in full every month.