arrrgh my credit score

T

Talyssa

New member
Hit some kind of weird wall with my credit score (well, my credit karma score anyway) where there is literally nothing I can do to make my credit go up.  They have this little tool that shows you how you can impact your score by taking various actions and NOTHING improves it.  Everything makes it drop a couple points. It actually dropped a point this month because I paid off my card early this month and had zero% utilization.  Supposedly I need MOAR OPEN ACCOUNTS but i really don't WANT any more open accounts... I have 2 credit cards, a car loan, and too many savings and checking accounts.

Stupid credit score, it  makes me feel like I'm winning some kind of game when it goes up and when it stops going up I feel like I'm not winning anymore.  Anyone but me play this game? 

(PS if you have a mortgage, the magic credit score game winning loan, then I hate you. Sort of.)
 
Are you shooting for a perfect score? I don't think it really matters unless you don't meet the cutoff for tier 1 credit (this varies by company or institution).
 
i have a credit score of of 775-780, i have a clean payment record (pay off in full each month), no car loan, no student debt, no mortgage loan and a credit history of about 15 years (first card when i was 18). it pretty much topped out in the 775-780 range, so what i started doing last month was to pay off my credit card balance two days before it closed to see what kind of impact that would have.  Because even if you pay off your card balance in full each month, i dont think you necessarily get credit for that, historically, a negative i would get is that my score is negatively impacted by my high balance even though i would pay it off in full every month.  I just started this last month so the lower balances at month end have not been reported yet. Im curious to see how my credit score changes by paying the cards in full (well most of the balance except what i charge in the last two days) before the statement closes.
 
qwerty said:
i have a credit score of of 775-780, i have a clean payment record (pay off in full each month), no car loan, no student debt, no mortgage loan and a credit history of about 15 years (first card when i was 18). it pretty much topped out in the 775-780 range, so what i started doing last month was to pay off my credit card balance two days before it closed to see what kind of impact that would have.  Because even if you pay off your card balance in full each month, i dont think you necessarily get credit for that, historically, a negative i would get is that my score is negatively impacted by my high balance even though i would pay it off in full every month.  I just started this last month so the lower balances at month end have not been reported yet. Im curious to see how my credit score changes by paying the cards in full (well most of the balance except what i charge in the last two days) before the statement closes.
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You might try requesting to increase your credit limits on your cards. Part of the score is based on % of the total credit you are using. So even if you are a good customer and pay off your entire balance every month, you may get a lower score for carrying an average balance with a higher %. Also part of the problem is not having enough types of debt you paid off--revolving credit, installments/car payments, and a mortgage. I am not saying to go get into debt for a higher credit score but that is the reality of these formulas.
 
speaking of 'types of accounts' - obviously its easy to get a credit card (one type) and a car loan (two types) and then a mortgage is type three -- what are the other types of loans?
 
Talyssa said:
speaking of 'types of accounts' - obviously its easy to get a credit card (one type) and a car loan (two types) and then a mortgage is type three -- what are the other types of loans?
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Personal loans, student loans, payday loans, etc
 
You guys do realize that any score of 750 or higher is all the same, right?  You don't get any extra special brownie points or lower rates.  :p 
 
USCTrojanCPA said:
You guys do realize that any score of 750 or higher is all the same, right?  You don't get any extra special brownie points or lower rates.  :p
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WE WANT TO WIN THE GAME!!!!
 
My credit karma score went up a point or two after one of the inquiries dropped off.  Also, I've heard that if you pay off your credit card before the statement closes that can increase your score especially if you have a low credit limit.  Something about utilization percentages.  I have no idea if it's valid or not.
 
Starlight East said:
26inirvine said:
Not that it matters as someone already stated, but the only scores I see above 800 either have a paid off mortgage or a long long track record of paying mortgage accounts on time. 
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A long long track record of paying the full amount of the credit card bills and never ever having any kind of loan helped me to get there too.
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+1  My credit score when I applied for a mortgage was over 800.  Never had car or student loans at that point, just 8 years of never being late on a credit card payment.
 
irvinehomeowner said:
They want to turn the score over at start at 0 again.
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Nah its just that for the generation of kids that grew up with standardized tests with results that say things like "you are in the 99th percentile in Language and 98th percentile in math" as soon as they added that "your credit score is better than XX% of people your age" you realized that if you didn't make that number as high as possible you'd never get into Berkeley.  Or whatever it is grownups apply to get into.

Seriously. We are trained to think that meaningless numbers are meaningful when you put them on a scale, and that's what a credit score is.  So you see it and you think "oh my god I need to be at the top of the scale" because thats how those work.  World of warcraft has an achievement bar that fills in as you gain achievements.  Mine is like half empty.  I find it vaguely upsetting (but then I get over it because I'm underachiever like that).
 
I pulled my credit report today and my lower credit utilization strategy did not work. Even though i pay our statement in full each month, i assumed i did not get credit on my score for paying it in full. So my ingenious idea last month was to pay off the entire balance two days before the close of my statement so the only balance would only be one or two days of charges at the most, figuring that having a pretty small balance (or lower credit utilization) would increase my score. So my credit report now shows the much lower month end balance but my score did not move one point. It stayed the same, its actually stayed the same for three months now. So im just going to go back to paying the balance in full after the closing statement again and let the score fall where it may. 
 
qwerty said:
I pulled my credit report today and my lower credit utilization strategy did not work. Even though i pay our statement in full each month, i assumed i did not get credit on my score for paying it in full. So my ingenious idea last month was to pay off the entire balance two days before the close of my statement so the only balance would only be one or two days of charges at the most, figuring that having a pretty small balance (or lower credit utilization) would increase my score. So my credit report now shows the much lower month end balance but my score did not move one point. It stayed the same, its actually stayed the same for three months now. So im just going to go back to paying the balance in full after the closing statement again and let the score fall where it may. 
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My guess is that once your % utilization at a certain number like 5 or 10 then you have earned the maximum score for that part of your total credit score so paying your cards down to 0 won't increase your score.  Good info to know.
 
Some years ago, I helped develop a credit scoring system -- not for FICO, but something similar, and using the same credit report information.  My understanding is that your credit card company will report your balance once per month, using the balance on that day.  Their reporting day is not likely matched in any way to your payment due date, or the day you pay the bill.  They simply report, for example, on the 10th of the month, every month, for all their customers, to each of the three credit reporting companies.  For some accounts, that will be soon after their due date.  For others, it will be far into the monthly cycle.  So trying to pay in full on any particular date will be helpful only if you know the day your credit card company actually reports to the credit reporting company.  I doubt that that information is something they will tell you.
 
goillini said:
Some years ago, I helped develop a credit scoring system -- not for FICO, but something similar, and using the same credit report information.  My understanding is that your credit card company will report your balance once per month, using the balance on that day.  Their reporting day is not likely matched in any way to your payment due date, or the day you pay the bill.  They simply report, for example, on the 10th of the month, every month, for all their customers, to each of the three credit reporting companies.  For some accounts, that will be soon after their due date.  For others, it will be far into the monthly cycle.  So trying to pay in full on any particular date will be helpful only if you know the day your credit card company actually reports to the credit reporting company.  I doubt that that information is something they will tell you.
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im my particular case, AMEX reports my month end balance. so the lower balance still did not help. Like USC said, i think once the credit utilization is below a certain threshold it probably does not matter.
 
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