No increase on Credit Scores- Please Help!

Question

Hello, I am new to the " building up credit world". After college I did not realize that you had to immediately start paying back student loans. So after 4 months of missed payments I started recieving calls to have loans consolidated. Although the loans were consolidated they still show 4 months of missed payments on 6 separate loans about $2000.00 each starting in 2007. I went back to school in 2014 and the loans are now defered. The loans were consolidated in 2009. I had a mortgage in 2007 with 3-30 day missed payments,  but was transferred to a new bank in 2012 with no missed payments. I recently sold the house in March 2015. I puchased a car in 2008 and paid on time until 2013 when I had a balance of  $1077.00 left on the car and gave the car to my brother. The car was repo'd and I had to pay the remaining balance of $1077.00 on the car to get it out (and yes, still gave it back to my brother). I did dispute it because it had  never been late before, but they denied it and it is still on the credit report.  I have 3 credit cards, one secured with a credit union. The limit is $500.00 on the secured credit union card, and I have had this account since 2009. 2 Capital One cards with increased credit limits from $500.00 to $2750.00 and from $300 to $500, both opened in September 2014. I have not missed any payments. The balance on the secured card is $41.11. I only make 1 transation on this card a month. The Captial one card with the limit of $500 has a balance of -.36 and the capital one card with the limit of $2750 has a balance of 67.00. The minimum payment is $25 a month for all 3 cards and I have paid $30.00 each month. I recently bought a new car in March 2015 with no missed payments. I'm bothered because my FICO score shows Equifax at 614 and TransUnion at 603, which is not much of a change each month, only about 1 or 2 points. What can I do to increase my scores? Everything has been paid on time (all cards since 2014 and current car-since March)  and I do not see an increase in scores.  Any advice or help would be appreciated. 

Answer 1

Tankee wrote:
After college I did not realize that you had to immediately start paying back student loans. For any credit account read the terms and make sure you understand them when you open the account.  If you have questions, ask.  you don't want to get in trouble in the future because you didn't know X. Tankee wrote:
What can I do to increase my scores? Everything has been paid on time (all cards since 2014 and current car-since March)  and I do not see an increase in scores.  Any advice or help would be appreciated. I'd suggest starting by reading up on the scoring and risk factors.  This is just a starting point and does not cover everything.http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx Given that Payment History is the biggest slice and is affected by derogs, which tend to have a significant impact and hold one's scores down as long as they are on reports, you need to focus on working on your derogs.  Hit the Rebuilding subofurm and carefully research before taking action as it is possible to make matters worse in some cases.  Your payment history going forward needs to be 100%.  Not 90%, not 99% but 100%.  Every payment must be made on time or else you're going to kill your scores.  Do whatever it takes to avoid derogs in future as you can already see the impact that they have and you shortly find out how difficult and how long it can take to clean them up.  Make sure you're budgeting and sticking to your budget.  If you need autpay to cover at least the minimums as a safety net then make use of it. Your revolving utilization falls under Amounts Owed, the second biggest factor.  Make sure your reported credit card utilization is in check.  Do not exceed 30% individual or overall.  Optimal is much less.  If you're not paying your statement balances in full then work to get to that point. Most other factors really just take time and responsible usage.  Building and rebuilding are a long, slow process and you can't just expect your scores to increase unless there are changes to your profile that would lead to an increase, Tankee wrote:
The minimum payment is $25 a month for all 3 cards and I have paid $30.00 each month.The minimum is irrelevant for scoring purposes.  Revolving utilization is what matters.  The minimum is just the requirement to keep your account current.  Again, work on getting to paying statement balances in fulll each month to avoid accruing more debt and interest.  Definitely keep an eye on revolving utilization.  It's simply balance(s)/limit(s).  If you have a card with a $1,0000 limit and it reports a $300 balance then that card is at 30%.  Please use paragraphs as it is difficult to read posts that run on and on like that.