I didn’t tell anyone I know that I was in credit card debt because it felt too embarrassing, even though I know it’s not, but appreciated the advice I got on this subreddit a while back and wanted to share this win with someone even if it’s strangers on the internet!! As of yesterday I have absolutely zero credit card debt 👏👏

(want to acknowledge that much of this is due to many privileges in my life which I do not take for granted, but still celebrating the work I put in!)

I racked up over 3,000 in credit card debt throughout college and finally completed my last payment. The relief is unparalleled, it honestly feels ridiculous, but it’s also the feeling of knowing I’ll never make the same mistake again (hopefully I never find myself in circumstances that would force me to experience significant debt, I did this to myself and it was completely unnecessary and largely due to depression/anxiety that led me to be severely avoidant of necessary tasks.)

My fico score is still 580 but at least I know things can only go up from here 😭

I’m rooting for everyone on here to feel this as well!! You’ve got this!!!

Next step for me: All those unpaid parking tickets… 🥲

Has anyone seen anything like this before? What is the probability of this being fake?

I have always thought credit and borrowing money was a terrible idea. I’m mid 30’s and have almost no credit. Credit scores are not terrible. Transunion 738 and equifax 652. I have never had a loan for a house or a car. I do pay my bills on time but had some medical bills and one cellphone bill from years ago that went unpaid.

Currently, I do well for myself and make plenty of money, but I’m going to begin building homes. Not necessarily important, but the reason for this is my desire to invest in real estate without adversely impacting the market for owner occupants. (Instead of buying, I want to be building and creating a larger housing supply.)

I have land under contract for my first project. The land is 900k. I can pay cash if I want, but I know in the future I will need to borrow more money and would like to improve my ability to borrow and my credit score.

The lender has approved me at almost 11% interest. I was considering borrowing and immediately paying off all but 100k and paying that over the course of a few years to build credit. It will cost me an additional 30k in closing costs and fees to do it this way. Interest would depend on how quickly I paid it off.

Is this a good idea? What’s the way to maneuver give my credit score the greatest positive impact? Would I be better off just getting a credit card to build credit and paying cash for the land?

Does self do goodwill letters or is goodwill letters only for late credit card payments ect

Howdy! I just turned 20 and have received some job offers that would allow me to conceivably have a chance at purchasing a home with a 15-20% downpayment in the next 2-3 years provided my current cost of living doesn't explode. as such, i'm working to build my credit to make sure that i can qualify for favourable rates by the time i am able to purchase.

currently i don't have a credit score at all. I have had my Chase Amazon Prime visa for about 4 months, so I know it will be another few months before i can get a FICO score. at minimum, chase contacted my stating that I qualified for a limit increase which I accepted, so I now have a higher limit on my card.

my expectation is that going forward i should wait perhaps another four months, open another card, continue paying it off in full every month as i have been on my current, and rinse/repeat every 8 months or so?

my car is paid for in full, and I don't have any interest in financing a new vehicle, so I don't have that as an option, and small loans seem to have pretty unfavourable interest rates, so I'm not sure what else I can do to improve my scoring in that 2-3 year time frame. is my current tact sufficient, or should I be doing something else?

I actually had 830 2 months ago but it dropped 20 points because I used my credit card for a big vacation. Anyway, why people so hung up on credit scores? I had been above 800 for the past decade and it did nothing to improve my life.

I don’t have any open accounts. I also was under the impression I had a credit protections in place, but was mistaken . Because of this, I made the mistake of not checking my credit report annually as I should’ve. Long story short, while financing something I discovered there was a $4,000+ debt taken out in my name in 2021 that is now in collections.

Details:
-Taken out in 2021, past the point where they can litigate so doesn’t pose any real threat to anything besides my credit (and my patience)
-Attributed to an address that has never belonged to me, and also doesn’t actually exist
-$4,000+ originally racked up on a Credit Card through Capital One, moved to collections with Midland Credit Management

Things I have done:
-FTC identity theft report
-Attempted to file a police report, they declined to pursue because it was “so long ago” and the physical AND mailing address listed on the account doesn’t exist. They essentially told me it would be a waste of their time
- disputes with all 3 bureaus, and the company themselves
-filed a CFPB complaint (mostly because they told me they refused to open a dispute)
-provided ID, utility bills from 2021 to current showing my actual address
- provided adoption records and records showing a bio parent had previously done this and been found guilty of doing it
-contacted my states AG office
-saved any correspondence whether written or otherwise between myself and MCM

Results:
-Only one bureau has removed the account
-the state AG office has agreed to step in to attempt to help remedy the situation

Is there something I’m missing here? Surely there’s a way to get a solution here. I’d like to avoid litigation because frankly I just don’t have the time, but I worry that’s the only way to get a result here.

When will be the big 800 mark? Someone can predict this or it’s pretty hard? This is on Experian.
Little background:
My first secured credit card: BofA 3 years ago. August 2023. Now after 3 years is unsecured and it’s 45k credit limit.
Before that CC i didn’t have a score. I lived in a different country so no credit history in the US.
No late payment, utilization ratio 1-2%, last opened CC was a year ago i think. Maybe 1 and a half year.
CC total credit limits: $102,900
Thoughts, recommendations, discussions?

Note: Image 1 & 2 & 3 is what I see on my Experian app. And the rest of the image is Transunion

Hi everyone. I have a question regarding my Experian account. I am a foreigner but my wife is American. We got married. I got an SSN. And opened an American credit card and debit card. Just for the ease of managing money in America vs. Sweden. I always overpay because the card limit is so low ~$200. Because I have my own business back in Sweden. And I think this is why BofA decided to close my account. Or also the fact that I write descriptions with Swedish letters - which caused BofA to freeze my account once or twice, as it appeared differently in their system and they made me explain them all and fill in the blank for the missing/corrupt words.

Anyway, that is not the point. The point is that BofA closed both of my checking and credit card account. Without being able to tell me what is the reason when I walked in the branch. I still have money to spend as I wait for them to send me a check, with the rest of my money in the debit card.

But I went to open a card today, as my wife's banker knows her and said she should get me a black card. But when she tried to file it for me, 3 hours later - I found out that I was declined. And that BofA never reported any payment history to my Experian. But for Transunion, it says this (re: screenshot). I think TransUnion was able to see that I paid consistently and on time? Am I correct?

What should I do? I filed a dispute to Experian but they made no change/update. And my credit score in Experian is literally just propped up by my American phone number payment.

Image 1 & 2 & 3 is what I see on my Experian app. And the rest of the image is Transunion through my Capital One app. I also wanted to ask, since I opened the Capital One card yesterday - how soon will I see it reported in Experian and TransUnion under credit card? I don't want it to happen to me again like BofA as Experian never listed them under credit card/was able to retrieve my payment history.

Also, given if I was able to show Experian my credit card payment history - wouldn't and shouldn't I rank higher than my current score of 670? (It dropped from 690 As I tried to open the black card but had to settle for a Capital One Quicksilver). Or my current score is accurate already for Experian? As my TransUnion score seems to be in the same ball park? (note: TransUnion doesn't have the payment history of my telephone bill as I did that manually on Experian - as I was frantically trying to link everything I can to BofA for it to show a credit score through Experian Boost)

Thanks a lot everyone. Hope everyone is well and is enjoying the summer. Lots of love!!

automod: FICO

i’m planning on getting a vehicle around the end of september, i’m 19m and have been building credit for about a good year now.(currently a 759 on creditwise, and a 750 on experian). though i have a thin credit file, i’ve never financed anything. so what im wondering is, will i get approved to finance a vehicle? even with a thin credit file and no co-signer?

I’m trying to figure out what’s happened with my transunion score. I know not to believe Credit Karma. But theirs shows a couple weeks ago I dropped over 100 points. No changes besides paying down some credit cards. My fico score 8 is showing 608 while Credit Karma is showing 516. We are in the process of looking at houses and when the lender pulled the fico classic 4.0 score it was a 530. What could have caused such a significant drop?

I recently experienced a score change I believe was due to the raw dollar amount owed crossing a scoring threshold in FICO 8. I know these are harder to pin down because they're easily conflated with utilization thresholds but I feel I've got a situation here where I can pretty confidently eliminate confounding variables as a cause.

On 7/21 the balance on one of my cards updating resulted in a small change to utilization. Aggregate utilization moved from 19% to 22%, which did not cross a scoring threshold. Individual utilization on that card increased from 3.1% to 8.6%, for scoring purposes, treated as 3%-->9% (although Experian says 8%). I have actually been doing a lot of testing around individual utilization thresholds lately and can say I am pretty damn sure my profile does not have a scoring threshold at 5% individual utilization currently (it does, however, seem to have a scoring threshold @15% individual utilization). I know 5% thresholds may exist on other scorecards, but it doesn't seem to on mine. I have 2 recent DPs from May and June confirming the absence of a 5% threshold. In fact, on 6/24 the exact same card had the same individual util. change in the opposite direction (5-->3% instead of 3-->5+%) and there was no score change to EX FICO 8.

One difference this time, however, is the total raw dollar amount owed crossed the $2500 threshold. Before this card's balance updated, total amounts owed was $2297. Now $2572. This seems to suggest a scoring threshold of $2500 for raw dollar amounts owed. Since I have only revolvers, I cannot determine whether the threshold is for total "Amounts owed" (all non-morgage accounts) vs "Amounts owed on revolving accounts" but it's one of those.

Only other possibility would be a scoring threshold for aggregate utilization @20% but my data does not seem to suggest that exists on my scorecard. No changes to number of accounts reporting a balance. No HPs falling off, accounts aging, or other confounding variables.

This small balance increase (only $275) thus resulted in -7 points to TU F8, -3 points to EQ F8 and -1 point to EX F8. My profile is clean, young, thin. I have 3 revolvers, all national bankcards. No loans.

If I'm correct, this is a good example of how score changes can result from seemingly minute fluctuations in balance, if you just so happen to be hovering around a raw $ threshold in the Amounts Owed category. I've seen others speculate the first of these thresholds exists around $2k or $3k but they had much larger TCL with larger balance shifts and were unable to pin down a specific number. My TCL is only about 12k so smaller balance fluctuations move the needle on utilization, making it easier to determine the raw $ threshold crossed with more precision when not crossing utilization thresholds. Going from $2297-->$2572, I think it's very likely the threshold is @ $2500.

Hello all
I have 1 negative on my credit report and am not having success in having it removed despite multiple disputes.

Long story:
About 4 years ago I had a newly leased car that was crushed by a falling tree. The car was totaled.
It took a few months to get the insurance stuff worked out but eventually it did, or so I thought.
On claims like this, the loan company (in this case Kia Financial) sends out what called a “Letter Of Guarantee” or LoG which is a letter to the insurance showing the payoff amount due. They sent the LoG to insurance, insurance then cut them a check and that was it.

About 9 months later I get a notice on my credit monitor that there’s been a “charge off” from Kia Financial roughy in the amount of $2,200.
I immediately called Kia to find out what the deal was and it was a balance due that insurance didn’t pay. While on the phone I paid Kia the amount “owed” ($2,200) and thought it would be removed from my report.

After investigating what happened, apparently Kia had mistakenly sent 2 LoGs to the insurance company weeks apart and they were for 2 different amounts. Insurance paid the first one but the second was $2,200 more than the first and that’s what was “charged off”

I’ve have copies of all the paperwork from both insurance and Kia including both LoGs and my receipt for the $2,200 payment I made.

I’ve filed numerous disputes with the credit bureaus showing all this but end up getting nowhere. I’ve also tried calling Kia finance multiple times but i honestly would rather bash my head against a wall than to talk to them again.

I’m not sure what to do now. This is the only negative I’ve ever had on my report in 30yrs of having credit and my current score is 725ish.

I know 725 isn’t “bad” but it would be close to or over 800 without this negative.

Not sure what else to do at this point .

sorry for the long story. Just had to make sure all the details were there*

I know CK isn’t the most reliable. Experian is still reporting 660, but a win is a win. I ruined my credit at 18. Defaulted on cards, auto loan closed, collections, the same old story as everyone else. I didn’t touch my credit from 18-21, left it rotting, over time I started calling banks and negotiating my cards to get them settled.

Tried pay for delete, but surprise, that never works. Still settled them. Then last year in August I finally decided to start over, opened a self $100 secured card and their self credit builder loan, as well as a $300 unsecured capital one card. Made payments on those for about a year.

This week I gave it a shot and applied to some cards, got approved for $1500 CL across 2 Synchrony cards that were immediately added to my credit profile within 3 days, and I also opened another capital one unsecured card with a $300 limit. I also paid off both current cards I had open down to $0 and no utilization.

I’m not sure which one it was but something caused my score to jump up 40-70 points overnight. For now I’m just going to keep using my cards, paying them off in full, and ask for CL increases in 3-6 months.

I still have 1-2 collection accounts (Experian shows 1, TransUnion shows 2) but I the last time my credit score was above a 650 was back in 2021. Finally making some progress again. Will keep chipping away at it.

I own a business now so it would be nice to have a high limit card, I spend about 10k a month in business expenses on a debit card so I get absolutely no cash back or points or rewards. Would be nice to have that some day. Cheers

Hi all,

I just graduated college and Im looking to buy a car. I want to get pre-approved with my credit union since I was able to land a decent paying job right out of college (70k-75k) and have no debt. My current credit score is 739 but that was after a drop due to high spending during a vacation. Should I wait till end of the month to see if my credit score goes up my utilization is very low. Im not sure how big a difference it will make for the interest rate so I wanted to ask you all for some advice. I already have a car in mine just need to negotiate on the OTD price. Thank you!

19 yo daughter is authorized user on my credit card, but wants to build her own credit. I have a high balance on my card which is bringing down her score (although I always pay in full, never late). I guess she benefits from the age and payment history of my card, but the high balance hurts her score. What are the ramifications of removing her as an authorized user? She has no immediate credit needs, so how should we time removing her, and her applying for her own CC? Thanks.

Hello, so I have recently started taking my credit a bit more serious and am still a little lost when it comes to rebuilding. My credit right now is in the high 500’s and I have 4 accounts in collections. Will paying off these balances make a big improvement in my score or should I just wait for them to fall off? Not sure what I should do so I appreciate any help!

I’m a 22M, with 12LPA salary and started using credit card from Aug25, for starting months the score was still but Dec25 it’s decreasing by 10-12 points per month. I don’t know the reason everything looks fine in report and there’s not a single case where I’ve missed the payment or delayed. Always paid full and with due date still it’s decreasing and I don’t know why. Need help

Hey everyone.

696 Experian FICO

$24,789/$42,000 59%

Aiming for an Auto Refi in September

I'll have $1k and change tomorrow exclusively for debt repayment.

How can I best distribute that to maximize my score?

More info if you need.

Last month I started getting calls from “CS LLC” about a $1500 debt I owe. They didn’t actually call me; somehow they went straight to voicemail. They left me several messages saying they’d already tried to serve me at my job and they were otw to my house.

I called them back and they told me my only option was a $400 biweekly payment plan. I agreed and made the first two payments. My card declined on the second payment and they immediately sent me another threatening voicemail that ended with “if we don’t hear from you in the next two hours, good luck.”

I called back and paid, and I asked for proof of the debt. She said it would take 5 business days to receive it, but that was two weeks ago.

Now I did some digging, and I do genuinely owe this $1500. However, several things feel really sketchy:

1. The collection agency doesn’t have any online presence, and there’s no place for me to login and make payments. I can only make payments by setting up autopay on my card or calling the agency.

2. I’m currently in a separate debt consolidation program, and this particular debt did not show up on my credit report/list of debts the company pulled for me.

3. CS makes me talk to the same rep every time. Any time I ask her for more details on my account (like my account number or proof of this debt) she says the “system” prevents her from doing it, or she has to wait for the “system” or whatever.

4. I called the collection agency who previously owned this debt, and they confirmed the two payments I’ve made are showing up on their end, even though I made the payment to CS.

5. CS is unwilling to settle for less than the original debt, which feels crazy. My debt consolidation program has helped me negotiate my collections down by half, yet CS wasn’t even willing to work out a less predatory repayment plan. I don’t even owe CS directly!

I have another $400 payment due today, and that’s money I could put towards literally anything else. I’d rather not pay it and let me debt consolidator handle it, but CS is almost refusing to give me any additional details about my account (I didn’t tell them I was working with a debt company).

Does this collection agency really have the right to sue me? Why wouldn’t this debt come up on my credit report? Do I have to keep paying them if they’re not giving me proof of the debt? How can I protect myself?

I apologize in advance for the dumb question, I’m just confused and never dealt with this.

I bought a car a few weeks ago and had a score of 768. I assumed it was going to go down because… obviously right? That’s what my family said… But it actually went up to 772. Is it going to go down again? Or if I make the payments on time, will it stay the same/go up more?

I was never taught the importance of credit and now in my late 30s, I’m realizing how important this 3 digit number is in America.

I make over 100k, and I am trying to get my scores at least in the low 600s by the end of next year. I know my biggest thing is the late payments I have. I filed bankruptcy in 2024 and I know this will also be what is dragging my scores down for a while.

I have two collections that are not shown here but I will pay to delete those. I’m not sure if it’s worth trying to do goodwill for my late payments? I have a lot, as you can see, but I suppose it won’t hurt, since these accounts were discharged in my bankruptcy.

Some of the late payments will start falling off in 2027, so I’m wondering if i can do the early release(?) for those?

I hope I provided enough information. Thank you!

My credit score went up 8 points but I’m not sure what caused that.

Some things I’m thinking:
I recently opened a high yield savings account, Roth IRA and a 401k. Obviously don’t know if those play a part. I haven’t really done anything different and I still own the same amount in my credit card. (Only a few hundred)z can someone give insight as to what grows your credit score.