Any tips, hints, do's and don'ts about adding some old credit lines to my reports, to help increase the length of credit history (and hopefully the scores!)? Current length of credit history is 18 years, 10 months. I'm remembering some accounts I had 20-25 years ago that aren't showing up anywhere, and am thinking of trying to have them added. A couple of personal loans from banks, and a credit card or 2. All are closed out long ago, and I'm pretty sure I mostly had a good payment record with them all. Wondering if it's worth it before I go through too much work, and digging through old dusty paperwork to find the info. Thanks!
The rule is that unused good credit gets deleted after 10 years of inactivity. Honestly, if your credit history is already almost 20 years deep, I don't think you will see any improvement from making it longer.
Thanks Mycroft! Yup, a little more research looks like it's almost impossible for a consumer to do anyway. One of the banks I wanted to use was a local 3 branch bank, that's now been bought out twice. Sure that they wouldn't want to dig out the records, even if they still had them. Guess I'll keep working some other routes, more of "what have you done for me lately". Thanks again.
I think it might not even hurt to keep some of your old negative accounts, even with some late pays, as long as they're paid. Have to admit that I used a credit repair service many years ago, and they were pretty succesful in getting some "at-the-time" negative late-pay accounts deleted. Seems like that's coming back to haunt me now, with some of the negative factors in my score being not enough history of credit. So, a person might want to use caution when going for deletions, unless you're going to replace them with at least as many positives, or more!
