How can I increase a score in the low 500's? According to CRA, the reason is due to low limits, and delinquencies. The delinquencies have to age out (15 delinquencies due to age out between 2011 and 2016) and no credit will be authorized currently so I won't receive increased limits. Will paying the balances on the delinquencies have any effect or am I subjected to waiting for them to drop off? Does the score increase as they age or as they drop off? I imagine I won't be eligible for anything during the interim so there's no way to increase the number otherwise.
There are several things you can do. First, you need to reduce your credit utilization ratio, which measures how much you're spending of your total available credit from all cards combined. If you have low limits and high balances, that's really bad. Work towards paying down your balances to the point where your CU ratio is 10% or less. It sounds like you just have delinquencies, but no collections, so dispute any inaccuracies among the delinquencies with the CRAs and hope that some may get removed from your credit reports. Those that don't will gradually become less of a factor in your credit scores over time. Also, you can look into getting a secured credit card that reports payments to the bureaus and will help you build positive payment history over time. In addition, do you have any close relatives or friends who would be willing to add you as an authorized user to one of their credit lines with good payment history and age? It's no risk to them and will help give your scores even more of a boost.
Credit restoration is a simple two step process: 1) dispute the negative tradelines on your credit report with the credit reporting agencies in writing and dispute each tradeline by specific data field which is inaccurate and/or incomplete; and, 2) add aged credit by becoming an authorized user on a family members credit card accounts (make sure they're in good standing and at least two years old).
