My credit score has gone up to around 620 with paying my low balance, bad credit credit cards twice a month. It jumped up this month and my car insurance payment went down about $10. This is around what my credit score was 3 years ago, when I had 0 credit. i was fresh out of college, had no credit cards, and hadn't started paying on my student loans yet. They approved me for a mortgage if I could get $4300 in the bank. At the time, I was working 70 hours a week and was able to do that in a month. I'm paying off the first premier credit card I got and canceled next month. I just had my balance upped with Orchard bank because I pay on that one every time I get paid. I thought I was doing good. I'm taking cello and music composition lessons in January and went to the music store to rent a cello. They denied me and said my credit wasn't good enough. i was ready and able to put a down payment on it and set it up on auto draft. They would not rent to me because they said my credit score was not good enough. Apparently, I can get a mortgage, but not a frickin cello. I did have a question about credit scores. I use credit keeper to monitor my score. Both experian and exquifax went up to over 600 this month. Transunion has not changed in 3 months. I've disputed some things on my credit report with both experian and transunion and nothing came of it. Aside from more disputes and paying my bills on time, how do I help my transunion score?
None of the scores you're tracking through credit keeper are worth really paying much attention to in the first place. The only scores you should really care about are your FICO scores. All the other ones are just estimates that will help give you an idea of where your true FICO scores might stand. As far as your TransUnion score goes, a lot of credit issuers report to Equifax and Experian but not TransUnion. So, if you have some positive accounts that aren't showing up on your TransUnion report, that may be the main reason why your TU score isn't quite as high. Just keep paying your credit card bills in full and on time, and your scores will improve over time. There's really nothing specific you can do for TU.
That depends largely upon thing such as geography, industry, and other variables. Here in the midwest, TU and Experian are popular with the lenders, but not much so with Equifax. And to the OP: As far as being amazed that you could be approved for a home mortgage but not a cello, realize that the collateral is the home and the cello. It's must easier to move/hide the cello than it is to move/hide a home. That's why the lending requirements for more "mobile" collateral is, quite often, more stringent than, say, a home.
