Madlock

Of COURSE he could have - others could have made him an authorized user of long-established accounts which would immediately give him positive tradelines AND a high AAoA. I never cease to be amazed by people who simply state conclusions they've decided upon with absolutely NO basis for deciding upon them.

All the advice given is good.

But one thing definitely WON'T improve your score any faster... asking the same question 3 times in a row.

Not that I don't appreciate the value of CK in principle or the general advice or discussion forum it provides to exchange information, but I've found its credit score modeling - and particularly its summary analysis to vary wildly from the real world.

For example, CK describes my credit rating and detailed data to be "fair" and places me at about the 52nd percentile, despite each of the other bureau-provided 3-in-1 scores each depicting each of my credit histories and scores to be in the "Excellent" range and having no delinquencies within the past 7 years.

Well, paying-off the loan most certainly did lower my TU score - by 4 pts accoding to FICO. My FAKO score dropped by 7. My oldest tradeline is 21 years and my average is 7 years.

You are at least partially mistaken.

That's not true. As an authorized user, the available credit, amount owed, and debt to income all reflect on the user's credit report and score regardless of the account's standing.

There was a lot of drama a year or so ago when agencies were seeking to close a loophole created by people "buying" authorized user space on other people's accounts, but due to the large number of husbands and wives who share cards without ever considering the difference, bureaus reversed themselves and report accordingly.

664 according to whose scale? FICO? CK/TU?

How do you correct a credit report? Firmly, but always with encouragement. :)

Seriously though, presuming you've allowed 60-90 days for your report to be properly updated, you should dispute each item with each credit bureau. They will validate and revise it. There's always a risk that the creditor or collection agency won't be so diligent as to distinguish between being paid or not.

You can specify the reason for your dispute, but you then limit yourself to the best possible outcome being the entry revised to paid rather than allowing for the possibility that a creditor may not respond, and the negative could otherwise be removed altogether.

If your online dispute fails, you should then go the certified letter route advising the creditor that they are obligated to report the item correctly and the bureaus that you want them to fully validate (not just verify) the date.

Of course, it depends upon the breadth, depth, and quality of the rest of your credit history. In a best case scenario, you should expect at least double-digits, perhaps as many as 75 to 100 points. Anything fewer would be a side benefit.

Nope. Each bureau has its own brand name product geared toward a specific industry or market segment, and dealers may even use a third party provider (CREDCO/IMS is a huge one) who provide their own version of a customized risk profile that's basically a derivative of derivatives.

While it's important to know your your score to have some kind of "apples to apples" relevant point of comparison, and FICO is probably the most widely discussed in any kind of "absolute" terms, it's all about what range your score happens to fall into more than the specific score itself, as you're almost always guaranteed to NOT know what yardstick they're measuring it with.

Unless you can eliminate negative information from your credit history or pay-down accounts with excessive debt-to-credit ratios, you can do very little that will have any kind of dramatic positive impact upon your score over a two month period. Strong credit scores reflect creditworthiness built over time.

On the other hand, you can do a great many things to send your credit score spiraling downward in the blink of an eye. It can take no more than a single late payment or delinquency to have a negative effect that can take months or years to overcome.

While building top credit requires both the judicious use of credit and avoiding its irresponsible use, maintaining a high credit score is generally MUCH more about avoiding negatives than chasing positives.

By ensuring your credit histories contain no adverse entries that do not belong with you, negotiating with any delinquent or negative accounts with the hope of settling them under terms that include removing them from your credit history, and obtaining and using credit responsibly.

Otherwise, any negative entires in your credit history will simply continue to affect you until their statutory 7-year maximum.

Obtain current copies of your credit history from all major reporting bureaus and ensure their accuracy, removing any erroneous items not in your favor.

While you can pay-down balances to improve your credit utilization ratios and debt to income ratios, negotiate to pay-off any delinquencies with creditors who may be willing to revise the status of your account or delete it from your credit history altogether, the rest is simply going to be a process obtaining using whatever credit you can wisely until any delinquencies reach their 7-year statutory reporting limit and disappear from your report.

The dealer may have either queried a different credit bureau or they are using one of the specialized credit rating products offered by the credit bureaus intended for customers in certain markets like auto lenders and real estates that reflect both factors that are weighted differently and perhaps use a different score range altogether.

The impetus behind the urge for "quick fixes" tends to be the same kind of compulsion that results in so many credit woes. Building credit is precisely that, "building"; and there are no Pre-fab solutions on the market.

People who've developed strong credit profiles over time have earned the consideration of lenders and creditors. Otherwise, what you're describing is really little more than trying to concoct a way to trick lenders into lending money to you when there wouldn't otherwise have been a reasonable basis to justify their trust.

Have you opened a bank or investment account? Applied for insurance, employment, or a property lease? Any number of non-credit reasons can result in inquiries.

Is there are question here somewhere?

If you don't believe your credit card should reflect the foreclosure, you should provide the CRA's with proof that the mortgage was discharged through bankruptcy and nothing further should be reported beyond the date of the bankruptcy. You may also want to send a letter to the bank to remind them of the discharge so they can amend their reporting of the debt status.

You should advise the credit bureaus by either writing to them or disputing the entry based upon their inaccuracies. You should also first ensure that each account is indeed closed by advising the lender in writing of your intent. It may very well be that they maintain an account for you with no balance, but it's not technically "closed".

I have 5 open credit cards with <1% CU rate, the oldest of which is about 5 years. For all intents and purposes, the remaining balance is the only debt I have.<br/>
I can most certainly just as easily keep the account open with the only ramification being that I don't have title-in-hand (no biggie) and my credit report showing a $400 monthly payment even though the total remaining obligation totals less than half of a single month's scheduled payment.

It's too bad that, despite all their sophistication, the CRA's computers can't or won't reflect the distinction. There's just no bucket for, "So close to paid-off as to be ridiculous", but you can be sure that a single late payment on a $20 loan wreaks havoc. :)

Absent some kind of legal intervention to dissociate yourself from the loan and relieve you of responsibility, you are unfortunately as responsible for the loan as your ex husband no matter what he may have promised or may or may not be doing to pay it.

For as long as the loan is delinquent, the lender most certainly won't voluntarily let you off the hook (two defendants to hold responsible are better than one), and with the cost of pursuing the matter in court (unless you appear pro se) likely equaling or exceeding the cost of the delinquent payments, you've really been left with few good options as even offering to pay "half" will only likely forestall repossession and give your husband a free car to drive for even longer with no motivation for him to make good.

Until you pay-off the remaining balance in its entirety, the only benefit it's likely to have is improving your overall debt to income ratio which, depending upon the loan and your income, can be a big improvement.

At the very worst, you can stop the interest accruing on any prepayments you make and/or push back the date your next payment is actually due for a year or more.

Provided you wouldn't benefit more from preserving a cash cushion, there shouldn't be any harm to paying down a year at once, it just may not be as big a "help" as you might hope in terms of FICO score.

It may not be a "negative" in terms of credit score, but it can most certainly affect one's debt to income ratio and ability to borrow further.

It depends where you stand. If you have no other credit building obligations, then you may benefit from keeping it open as long as you can reasonably afford. Another obligation would be to seek to refinance it at a lower rate.

You may also consider making all but the final few dollars' worth of payment. This should stop the accrual of interest on all but a few dollars while allowing the debt to continue to report on-time without any risk to you whatsoever.