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What's lowering your score is probably the addition of new debt more than anything (hard inquiries from the new loan and credit lines drop your score as well). This isn't necessarily bad, it will always happen when you take on debt. In the long run you will find that as long as you don't fall behind on payments (which with a student loan, chances are no payments are required until after graduation) you will be able to achieve an even higher score. The debt itself has a negative impact on credit as long as it is there, but having an open account with no missed payments will provide a slow rise in your credit and when you do eventually pay off the loan you will see your score rise much more.

Every credit card agreement I've ever read has a disclosure explaining that the credit company has the right to refuse or change the offered credit line at any point. It makes sense from the business side, if you're offering a credit line or loan of your money it'd only make sense that it is your choice and you have the option to cut that credit line at any point. They should notify you but ultimately it is a courtesy not a requirement.

it will likely not ever show up on your credit report. Though, you should make sure to check to verify that this is the case when you're due for a free report. If it did show up, contact the creditor and request that they remove the late payment given the misunderstanding, and the likely will. A single one week late payment won't severely damage your credit in general though.

My tip, if you know for sure you will be buying a house take as much student loan money as your can for the lower interest rate and stash the money for your down payment. The more cash up front you can offer the easier it is to get the house and loan you want and the extra open account with all on-time payment boosts your credit score (can't have late payments on college loans since you don't make payments till after graduation), plus if the interest is cheaper and especially if oyu qualify for no interest while in school its a win win. Keep in mind though that the lender does look at how much debt you currently have when applying for loans, make sure that money is kept only for the purchase of your house. The two year employment history is definitely good to have but it's only part of a much larger equation to determine risk. I doubt you'd want less than a years employment history but they do look at things like how long you've been working in the same industry, so if you went to college and worked during college in the same field that you went into after college, its a boost. For example, I work as a pharmacy technician while going to college and I'm studying to become a pharmacist, so a lender would look at the fact that even prior to becoming a pharmacist I worked several years within that job industry. Lastly, don't be too eager in your house search, if you want to get the best deal it takes a lot of patients and time keeping an eye on the housing market. It's well worth the wait to make sure you get your ideal home at the ideal price.

not much, you can open more credit lines but that also requires more hard inquiries and if you don't need the credit, it's a waste of plastic in your pocket. Try requesting a credit line increase from your credit cards every 6 months or year, it slowly improves your credit but don't expect any easy gimmicks for a big boost in score over a short time.

It depends on the lender, different lenders look at different scores or sometimes all the scores. Bank loans will generally look at all three with the fico score whereas most credit cards companies have one preferred credit score company that they use. If you ask the lender they will tell you what they use.

I agree with the other response, pay off highest interest first. Depending on how much your interest rates are, you might be better off consolidating your interest with a balance transfer. A lot of credit companies will offer deals such as 0% interest for a year with a 3% one time charge for the total amount of the balance transfer. This means if you have $10,000 in credit debt at 15% interest between all your cards and you do a balance transfer you can put all of the $10,000 you owe the companies under one credit card for a $300 fee. Then make sure you pay it off within the 0% interest period and you've managed to avoid accumulating the $1,500 debt that your cards would have charged over the year. The catch is that you have to PAY OFF THE DEBT COMPLETELY before the 0% period ends or else you will be charged back interest at the new rate for the whole period and amount. This approach helps your score more immediately because consolidating all of the debt makes it appear that you've paid off all of your other cards. Make sure you understand balance transfers completely before getting one, though.

A lot of times, it never will show up on your credit until years later when it gets turned over to a collections company (and sometimes not even then). I don't know how much it would lower your score if it does show up but as someone employed by a hospital I'd recommend contacting the hospital and explaining that you cannot afford to pay your bill. Most hospitals offer programs to help you reduce or completely rid your bill if you are financially unable to pay. There tends to be a lot of paperwork involved but you can go into the hospital and they can walk you through it.

As long as there aren't any late payments associated to that account it's not hurting your score but I would verify with the credit company that the account is closed if it's showing up differently on your credit report. Closed accounts will show on your reports for several years, so if it's just a matter of it still showing up as a closed account you can ignore it, it is supposed to show up.

Be patient, it takes time. Ask for an increase in your credit line after every 6 months (I generally try to get a 25% increase in my credit lines at least once per year). Try to switch from secured cards to regular credit cards as your score gets closer to 700. I'd recommend Discover, Chase, and Citi rewards cards as my favorites. If your having trouble getting approved for a credit try a student credit card as the approvals tend to be easier. It's not necessary to use your credit cards as it is the length of credit history and the 0 late payments that helps your score but in order to keep your credit lines increasing you should charge something and pay it off at least once every few months.

It's neither, of the three scores that are reported from the three agencies, your fico score is the middle score (median). So for example if your 3 scores are 711, 718, and 701 your fico score is 711.

Authorized users do not actually benefit from having the credit card because the card is ultimately in the name of the primary cardholder and that person is responsible for all payments on the account. The credit company reports credit history only to the primary cardholders social security number unless there is a debt that goes without payment to collections in which it will often be reported against everyone who has a card on the account. In other words authorized users help nobody. In response to the initial question, you have to be legally an adult to be worthy of credit because as a minor your debts are the responsibility of your parent/guardian. The extra one month is likely because you can't base a credit score off less than one months history.

I believe it does the opposite actually. The longer your credit history the better and when you pay off debt quickly the less it shows healthy debt payment. On the other hand, your overall amount of debt may lower your score in which case the more you pay off the better for your score. In other words, when you pay off your loan early your score will likely go up slightly in the immediate sense that your debt has been reduced but the long term credit score is improved more by a longer history of payments. In my personal opinion, making more payments to slowly get your credit score up is not worth the additional cost in interest payment so pay it off as soon as you can afford to.

The most valuable thing to have when looking to purchase a home is a large down payment. It's important for your credit that you're paying off your debt (and hopefully it's varied debt and not just credit card debt as that helps your score) but don't forget to save up enough money for a good down payment. When a lender looks at a persons risk of failing on a loan they look not just at the credit score but also at how reliable a persons income is and the value of the asset compared to the how much is borrowed. By starting off with a great down payment you are able to keep monthly mortgage payments lower which reduces the risk of you not keeping up with payments and it reduces the banks overall risk. Lastly, if you are married make sure your spouse has good credit because you can piggyback off another persons credit by cosigning.

I got mine 2-3 years ago when I was the same age (though I doubt I even had a credit score back then) and it was initially $1000 limit. Since then I've asked for only one increase which bumped it up to $1,750. I'd recommend it, the rewards are great and their website has great tools to analyze your spending.

I have a chase rewards credit card that I've had for a few years now and Chase has been a very good credit provider, however if you're sold on the notion of a credit company offering more user friendly credit spending analysis tools I'd have to recommend getting a Discover card instead. The discover card has an online tool called spending analyzer which takes your statement information over your choice of time frame (anywhere from the current month to the past 24 months) and categorizes all of your spending into a pie graph with sections like retail, gas, supermarkets, restaurants, etc.. This way it's easy to see where you're spending your money most. You can further categorize it by selecting a specific category of the pie chart to see which stores specifically your expenses have been at in a new pie chart. It also provides calculators to determine how long it would take and how much interest you'd pay if you made a purchase and paid a certain fixed amount per month. I'm not trying to bash Chase because I've never had a problem with my Chase credit card but I think Discover is definitely the better card (though it isn't accepted at as many places as Chase Visa or Mastercard).

What still doesn't make sense is how a person would get a high credit score if they're considered insufficient in these six factors. Aren't these the six factors that are also very important in determining credit score?

I applied last week and was denied. My score on here is 754 but apparently my fico score is in the lower 700's and they told me over the phone that I would need to have a fico score of at least 750 to qualify. They gave me a breakdown of what areas qualified me and what areas disqualified me and the two factors that denied me were number of inquiries on my record (about 9) and too low of credit score (about 720 from fico). Seems a bit harsh considering I have almost 3 years of perfect credit card use history, personal and auto loan history. I'm only 22 and have never had a negative mark on my credit history between 2 loans and 4 credit cards other than too many inquiries, if that doesn't get my credit score high enough what does?! Hopefully creditkarma will update their credit score approval data as it is way off from what american express told me directly.

I have the chase freedom rewards points card; instead of cashback i get rewards that can be cashed in for gift cards or certain retail items. The card hasn't been bad, I didn't use it for the first two years I had it and they actually increased my credit limit after the first year without request. Over the last several months I started using it often for all my fast food purchases but for the majority of my sepnding I use discover because it has the best cashback rewards of any credit card I've found so far. I'm the type of credit user that pays off my balances in full every month so I have not had any issues with credit reductions or APR spikes. One warning, if you save up a lot of points or cashback but have a late or missing payment they can take away your earned cashback/rewards (most rewards cards do this) so read all the fine print!

I don't know why others bashed the customer service with Comcast, in my experience the customer service is great (especially compared to ATT). This offer isn't that great of a deal considering it's $99 for basic service of all three but you can go to their website and find better offers more specific to what you want. I'm currently on a promotion paying $30 a month for the highest speed internet which is over ten times faster than the ATT DSL I was getting for the same price.

ATT is the worst internet provider I have had to deal with. I switched from Comcast to ATT on this promotion a year ago thinking I would save money and that it couldn't be much slower. It is wayyy slower than Comcast cable (over 3-4 times slower) and more expensive than what I now pay for comcast (granted at a promotional rate). Plus, ATT has horrible customer service and in my experience lies to customers. It says "without the need of local phone service" but when I signed up I was told that was only if you get TV service through ATT, so I ended up having to pay an extra $10 a month for the most minimal phone service (no long distance and limited local). The free gateway rebate was another way for them to try to rip me off, I was told I had to have service for a couple months before they sent the rebate, then they told me 6 months, then after 6 months they told me I took too long and the offer expired. The cash back part I was told was on its way month after month until after a few months I was told that I had not qualified for it (contrary to the contract that fortunately I kept). The installation took an extra two weeks because I ordered online and the phone number I was assigned was also assigned to someone that ordered service by phone hours later causing my original order to be dropped (it took 4 different "supervisors" and 3 hours on the phone to figure out how it happened and reorder service). Did I mention customer service is horrible, I would wait on average 25-30 mins on hold before reaching a representative on the phone and if you ask to speak with a supervisor you get transferred to another general representative or are told there are none available. I was eventually able to get all my rebate and promotional money but only after a few dozen hour long phone calls, complaints through the better business bureau, and many emails including copies of my contracts to prove what was offered (as they would claim there was no such offer ever available).

It would be awesome if this site offered a credit line simulator, similar to the credit score simulator but applied to determining how much of a credit line or loan amount one could generally expect based off different inputs such as credit score, income, payment history, etc.

I understand that it is important to keep utilization low, but I am trying to build my credit limits faster so that I use them for bigger purchases without making the credit utilization too high. Does utilizing a larger share of my credit line help boost my credit limit faster? In my case I have a credit score around 730 and 4 credit cards that I've had all less than 3 years at limits of about $1,000 each. Yet my credit line increases are very small $250-$500 every year or so. How can I boost my credit line faster?

I've read that one option is to tack on a higher price to the home and have that price jump applied to the down payment (for instance, buy a home that's $300k for $320k and receive $20k toward the down payment). Is it legal to do this, and if so, is it an agreement made with the lender, buyer or is it set up some other way?

I switched from ATT DSL (their highest speed) to Comcast (three times faster) and it costs almost half as much. I read a lot of comment complaints about the customer service but if you've ever had ATT you'd know comcast is FAR SUPERIOR to ATT (I had to put a complaint through the better business bureau just to get ATT to uphold their contract). The snag with comcast is always that they jack up your rates to ridiculous costs after the promos end. Overall, Comcast beats ATT any day.