Hello, I posted a week or so ago about our mix-up when our mortgage loan was transferred. We have since been able to get the 90-day late removed from all credit bureaus, but our scores barely went up!! My score is 541 and my husband's only 538!!! We have a pretty clean credit report, too! I am so frustrated. How can our scores be so low?? We've had a few 30-day lates on credit cards in 1999. I've read on here that people had 5 derogs removed and their score went from 450 to 700 in 5 months. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE??? Any advice would be much appreciated! I'm so frustrated and reading all of your success stories does give us some hope, but I guess we need some words of encouragement!
If you have a pretty clean credit report and still can't get the higher scores you may need to take some proactive measures to build new and better tradelines. Short term secured loans from banks can do that.
I'm definitely no expert here, but I believe 35% utilization is the optimum. Have you tried the FICO simulators? What are they showing as your top negative factors?
One more thing...our current mortgage company, CTX, doesn't report to the credit bureaus!!! The only time they reported was in error in August with a 90-day late, which we just had removed. I suppose it doesn't help when we pay our mortgage on time every month and they don't report us, so the data looks old. Would this contribute to the low FICO?
If CTX reported you for 90 days late to the CRA's, they must have some kind of a relationship with the CRA's. I would concentrate on getting CTX to report your mortgage account to the CRA's (assuming it is a positive one). Try writing letters to CTX (different departments), call-ask for supervisor, and/or planetfeedback. Just keep harassing them until they do it. If it is already on your cra's, can't say from your post, tell them to update your account with the CRA's.
what score are you looking at? could be you are looking at some FAKO score that is way off from FICO.
what exactly does a "pretty clean report" mean? Is there just a few negative items on your report or are you saying that everything that is reporting is a positive acct.
I agree with jlynn. You can have clean reports and still have low scores because of your utilization %. FICO looks at the length of your credit history as well. What about hard inquiries? How many do you have? By the way, I had a collection account deleted with Equifax but my score only went up 1 freaking point! I couldn't believe it! But I don't know what my real score is yet when the one pulling is the merchant or creditor. I suggest you go to http://www.privacyguard.com and subscribe to their 3 month trial for $1. You can pull your report every single day and get your Equifax score which is not the "real one' but pretty close if you ask me. What you would find very useful with Privacy Guard is that you get a credit analysis. You'll know what's causing your score to be low and what's making it higher. It's worth the $1 for 3 months. Good luck!
