Credit Scores

[Chauncey11]

Don't know how this will go over but I think it would be helpful to people if we could give some advice on how to improve our credit scores. I'm sure we know how important it is.

Anyway, i will be the first person to post mine up here. Perhaps some of you could do the same and we can get a little better Idea on what "Really" improves your credit score the most, more than just pay your bills on Time and things like that.

Well My Credit Score is 662.
Here are the Things hurting My Credit Score:
Total account balances are too high in proportion to credit limits:
Consumers having high balances on accounts in relation to the credit limits are more likely of future delinquency.(I do have some high balances which are quite close to My limit. It's a lot better now than it was last year, But I do have some credit card debt.)

Your credit report reflects one or more accounts with a derogatory payment rating or a public record such as a civil judgment, bankruptcy or tax lien( I got a parking Ticket in Philly last year and I never paid it. Damn, I wish i would have known they were going to send it to collections. it was only 20 snaps.)
Too few mortgage accounts:
Not enough mortgage account activity has a negative impact on your credit score. ( I guess not havaing a house "lowers" my credit score. This is news to me.)

Also Not specifically mentioned, I did have some 30 day late payments around 2 years ago which are still present on there. Obviously that's not a good thing.
I also have 3 current car Loans which IMO might be bringing down my score or atleast not helping with trying to get new credit, But I got enough as it is.
It also states that 46% have a lower score than me putting me below average.

So that's about it.
I know it's been posted before but you can check you credit score once- a-year for free for each one of the 3 bureaus at www.annualcreditreport.com.
My opnion, check one every 4 months instead of doing them all at the same time. This way you can review periodically for free.
The actual score will cost about 6-8 bucks depending on who you go with.
I just did TransUnion and it ws $5.95.

[TrainedMind]

Credit score is a joke. Why? first of all it says nothing about a person..ya creditors look into your credit worthiness yet they don't look at you as a person. I happen to have 750 yet I have not even done that much in my purchases. Yes, I bought my house at 23 and paid it off in 1998 but that was it. so does that make me a bad person just because I have paid for something early? I don't get the system but , I guess I really don't need to understand how these people calculate a person's worth by looking at the credit score since I don't go by the system anyways.

[Chauncey11]

Originally Posted by TrainedMind

Credit score is a joke. Why? first of all it says nothing about a person..ya creditors look into your credit worthiness yet they don't look at you as a person. I happen to have 750 yet I have not even done that much in my purchases. Yes, I bought my house at 23 and paid it off in 1998 but that was it. so does that make me a bad person just because I have paid for something early? I don't get the system but , I guess I really don't need to understand how these people calculate a person's worth by looking at the credit score since I don't go by the system anyways.

You may not go by the system but anytime you try to get a car loan, Mortage, Credit cards, They use this system to determine your interest rate.
I don't believe the system is fair but there is really nothing we can do about it except learn to play by their rules. I would just like to gain knowledge on what those rules are.

[Hannainnc]

One thing I know that improves your credit score is to charge up a high balance on a credit card, then pay it off. In addition, limit your retail cards (like specific retailers...a Belk card or Gap card)...having one to two bank cards in good standing is important. They are unsecured and a good payment history on those rates higher than your secured loans (car, other personal loans).

[zrod]

I got awhile to bring my credit in good stadning.
my credit score was around 595. That was due to identity theft, man they really did a number on me .
for the longest time I never knew why couldnt get anything on credit.
now that i found out its still gonna take like 2-3 years for the crap to get off my credit history.

[TrainedMind]

Originally Posted by Chauncey11

I don't believe the system is fair but there is really nothing we can do about it except learn to play by their rules. I would just like to gain knowledge on what those rules are.

Ha! we can do something about it. just pay cash for everything.

[Chauncey11]

A litle more information I ran into:


http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/...ng/P130255.asp

[DavidScott77]

besides a home loan...pretty much everything else in the world should be purchased with cash. If you don't have money for it, then you don't need it.

[sonicbum]

Originally Posted by DavidScott77

besides a home loan...pretty much everything else in the world should be purchased with cash. If you don't have money for it, then you don't need it.

Not true. There are MANY MANY advantages of credit cards over cash.

I have a credit card that gives me 1% back on EVERYTHING I purchase, plus 5% on certain purchases each quarter-year.

Ive had one credit card ive probably payed less than $50 in interest for EVER in the last 3 years and I have a free round-trip airfare ticket to anywhere in the usa, and about 15,000 points left over after that.

If you get robbed, or lose you wallet with $1000 cash in it, your not gonna get that money back. If you lose a wallet with a credit card in it, and someone spends $5000, no worries, youre not even resposible...

The bottom line is, you have to be resposible. Chances are, the people that are bad with creditcards are the same ones bad with cash...

[ryanbodybuilder]

you can improve your scores by getting 3 secured credit cards at about $300 each.....use them and pay them off every month....then after 12 months they give you your money back and increase your line to $1000 or so unsecured.....thats when you just stop using them.....your credit will be in the 700's in no time..but those secured cards do cost about $50-$100 to get into for a year...but its worth it

[Taekwondo Guy]

my personal loan will be paid off next april and that frees up a lot of cash per month. I have a credit card with a 500 limit and i refused their offer of a gold card with a 3000 limit due to me not needing that amount of debt.

on top of that i'm paying off a flexi-loan thats like an overdraft that lets you put cash in and out freely, you just pay 10% of what you owe.

next year i'm hoping i will pay off my credit card, loan and flexi loan...

the plan is to reduce all my outgoings to zero in terms of debt so i can apply for a loan to buy a new car on a low APR% due to building up a good repayment history.

wondering if i will get the low APR% though, like what everyone else has aid, credit scoring is a bit of smoke and mirrors, nobody really knows how they come up with them

[sp33dkillz]

when i went to check on the loan to buy my house about a year and a half ago, i was at 753. at that time i had over 7,000 dollars in credit card debt. the only thing i had ever really done was pay off a small personal loan for 2500 when i was younger, and a car loan for 13,000.

[hurricanemitch]

Originally Posted by DavidScott77

besides a home loan...pretty much everything else in the world should be purchased with cash. If you don't have money for it, then you don't need it.

I couldn't agree more!

[sonicbum]

Originally Posted by hurricanemitch

I couldn't agree more!

hahahahahhahaaa, join us in the 21 century fellas!!!!

[afnerd]

The credit scoring system may not be perfect, but how else can you trust a complete stranger. You need a method of measuring how reliable a person is. There needs to be a better way to correct your credit if you were a legit victim of identity theft than making you wait out a few years for you to rebuild your credit. Of course the wait may defer fraud cases.