I have two questions, the first is not so important, the second is my primary concern. I have for the first time ever looked in to my credit report. I see my student loans, I have three, all labeled "pays as agreed". However one of these loans, made with the school itself, appears twice, but with two different account numbers, one acct# has a numerical prefix then my School ID number, the other Acct# has the same numerical prefix then my S.S #. The accounts share many of the same details such as "pays as agreed", no delinquency, a High Credit of $3,000, but one of the accounts is blank or labeled N/A in many of the credit report fields, this same account has a Comment payment deferred, where as the account with a more complete history does not. Will both of these accounts close upon the completion of my loans repayment or should I file a dispute? On my credit report I see a Credit Card account that has been "closed by the grantor", account owner: "terminated", High Credit: $5,907, Status: "Pays as Agreed", actual payment amount: $600 first date of delinquency: N/A, but this is not my account. I never opened this account or made any payments, I didn't even know it existed until I viewed my credit report. Before I ask my question regarding this unknown account a little background first. I had another credit card that I had opened for a day then closed myself (I was shopping and thought it was a discount card, only to realize it was a credit card after the fact, I was 18 years old and the card had a credit limit of $125, i never used it). I am also currently an authorized user on another OPEN credit card(which i do not believe impacts my credit, but it has a spending limit of $5,400, and a debt to credit ration of 90% ). Aside from these credit cards the only other accounts on my credit report are student loans with a $13,000 spending limit and a debt to credit ratio of 57%. Is it going to positively or negatively influence my credit score to dispute the credit card account of which I had no knowledge? And I guess I will sneak a third, fourth or fifth question in here. What should I do to rise my credit score? Does my debt to credit ratio play a role, and what is the ideal percentage? All of my accounts, even the one I am an authorized user on have been "pays as agreed". I want to buy a new car an lock in a low interest rate. Currently my credit score is 680, 684, 699. I hear that is good, but i also hear 750 and up is great, and at 720 one can start to take advantage of significantly lower interest rates on car loans. Should I get a new credit card? And if so what do i want the spending limit to be on said credit card. Or would a new credit card negatively impact my auto loan? What about paying off one of my student loans? would that boast my score? Any help would be so much appreciated. I Don't want to get screwed at the dealership. Thanks, and sorry for the behemoth of a post.
It should, however you could simply dispute the account as "duplicate account" and it should come off within 30 days. Actually, it does. While becoming an AU on an existing account can help dramatically in establishing your own credit and boosting your scores, it can also work the other way. First thing is make sure the account owner is never late. If the account has any late pays ever, then it's not worth you being on it. Second is the D2C ratio, which 90% is very high and is likely impacting your score negatively. It sounds as though you only have two revolving accounts on your reports, one of which isn't even yours, and the other has a way-too-high debt to credit ratio going on for it. If the utilization was cut by 50% or more, you would very likely see scores in the low to maybe mid 700's. Unfortunately though there's no absolute way to determine this as we've had members who tried anything they could to get their scores higher (had no late pays and changed their utilization from month to month to see what impact it would have), and had no success; however most people do see change. I would suggest disputing the account that is not yours. It's never a good thing to have the remarks of Closed by credit Grantor, and I'm not sure what account owner: terminated means....but doesn't sound the greatest. A simple dispute through the CRA should correct this. I would suggest trying to get a CC on your own. There's a tool on creditnet somewhere that the admin can likely point you towards to get some ideas on which cards you should shoot for. Your scores are good, so you have some options. It's a good idea to keep your revolving ratio's below 20%, if you can. Opening up a CC should not affect applying for an auto loan in the future, either. As far as what you would want the credit line on the CC to be, frankly the higher the better. A 10k limit with 1k in balance is 10% utl. A 2k limit with 1k balance is 50% utl. Obviously that balance will affect your scores less with higher limits. Also, just so you're aware, there is a Credit forum Credit Talk where you will likely get more responses with versus in here in the General Section. Welcome to the board, and good luck with your future purchase!
