How can I raise my credit score 50-100 pts in 6 months?

Question

I had became ill and thus, went through some financial hardships....so, please don't judge. my credit got messed up. I would like it to go up 50 to 100 pts in 6 months. is this possible? and if so, how.

Answer 1

7 fast fixes for your credit score

If you're dragging around a bad credit score, you'll pay more for car loans, credit cards and mortgages. Here's how to turn it around in a hurry. Plus: 4 credit mistakes to avoid.

Know the score

In order to improve your credit score, it's important to know where you stand currently. Despite all the media attention given to free credit reports, you still have to pay to find out your credit score, the three-digit number ranging from 300 to 850 that is the key to your borrowing costs. You can obtain your FICO credit scores, the ones lenders use, from MyFico.com. Or you can get Experian's "consumer education" version here.

Now you're ready to take the seven steps to speedy credit repair:

1) Pay down your credit cards. Paying off your installment loans (mortgage, auto, student, etc.) can help your score, but typically not as dramatically as paying down -- or paying off -- revolving accounts like credit cards.

The credit-scoring formulas like to see a nice, big gap between the amount of credit you're using and your available credit limits. Getting your balances below 30% of the credit limit on each card can really help.

While most debt gurus recommend paying off the highest-rate card first, a better strategy here is to pay down the cards that are closest to their limits.

2) Use your cards lightly. Racking up big balances can hurt your score, regardless of whether you pay your bill in full each month.

What's typically reported to the credit bureaus, and thus calculated into your score, is the balance reported on your last statement. (That doesn't mean paying off your balances each month isn't financially smart -- it is -- just that the credit score doesn't care.)

You typically can increase your score by limiting your charges to 30% or less of a card's limit. If you're having trouble keeping track, consider using a check register to track your spending, logging into your account frequently at the issuer's Web site, or using personal finance software like Microsoft Money or Quicken, which can download your transactions and balances automatically.

3) Check your limits. Your score might be artificially depressed if your lender is showing a lower limit than you've actually got. Most credit-card issuers will quickly update this information if you ask.

If your issuer makes it a policy not to report consumers' limits, however -- as is the usual case with American Express cards and those issued by Capital One -- the bureaus typically use your highest balance as a proxy for your credit limit.

You may see the problem here: If you consistently charge the same amount each month -- say $2,000 to $2,500 -- it may look to the credit-scoring formula like you're regularly maxing out that card.

You could go on a wild spending spree to raise the limit, but a more sober solution would simply be to pay your balance down or off before your statement period closes. Check your last statement to see which day of the month that typically is, then go to the issuer's Web site about a week in advance of closing and pay off what you owe. It won't raise your reported limit, but it will widen the gap between that limit and your closing balance, which should boost your score.

4) Dust off an old card. The older your credit history, the better. But if you stop using your oldest cards, the issuers may stop updating those accounts at the credit bureaus. The accounts will still appear, but they won't be given as much weight in the credit-scoring formula as your active accounts, said Craig Watts, an executive at Fair Isaac & Co., one of the leading credit scorers. That's why Ferguson often recommends to her clients that they use their oldest cards every few months to charge a small amount, paying it off in full when the statement arrives.

5) Get some goodwill. If you've been a good customer, a lender might agree to simply erase that one late payment from your credit history. You usually have to make the request in writing, and your chances for a "goodwill adjustment" improve the better your record with the company (and the better your credit in general). But it can't hurt to ask.

A longer-term solution for more-troubled accounts is to ask that they be "re-aged." If the account is still open, the lender might erase previous delinquencies if you make a series of 12 or so on-time payments.

6) Dispute old negatives. Say that fight with your phone company over an unfair bill a few years ago resulted in a collections account. You can continue protesting that the charge was unjust, or you can try disputing the account with the credit bureaus as "not mine." The older and smaller a collection account, the more likely the collection agency won't bother to verify it when the credit bureau investigates your dispute.

Some consumers also have had luck disputing old items with a lender that has merged with another company, which can leave lender records a real mess.

7) Blitz significant errors. Your credit score is calculated based on the information in your credit report, so certain errors there can really cost you. But not everything that's reported in your file matters to your score.

Here's the stuff that's usually worth the effort of correcting with the bureaus:

Late payments, charge-offs, collections or other negative items that aren't yours.

Credit limits reported as lower than they actually are.

Accounts listed as "settled," "paid derogatory," "paid charge-off" or anything other than "current" or "paid as agreed" if you paid on time and in full.

Accounts that are still listed as unpaid that were included in a bankruptcy.

Negative items older than seven years (10 in the case of bankruptcy) that should have automatically fallen off your report.

You actually have to be a bit careful with this last one, because sometimes scores actually go down when bad items fall off your report. It's a quirk in the FICO credit-scoring software, and the potential effect of eliminating old negative items is difficult to predict in advance.

Some of the stuff that you typically shouldn't worry about includes:

Various misspellings of your name.

Outdated or incorrect address information.

An old employer listed as current.

Answer 2

To have a good credit you only need to have 4 credit accounts.  These accounts can be 2 credit cards a mortgage or loan. Keep the credit card at 35% this will increase your scores. If you decide not to use the card for longer than six month the account can become inactive and cause a weight on your credit rather than helping you.

Credit scoring software looks at five areas of your credit reports and uses these percentages as a guide:

35% - Your Payment History

30% - Amounts You Owe

15% - Length of Your Credit History

10% - Types of Credit Used

10% - New Credit

This simple steps will raise your scores in about two month

check the source for more information

Answer 3

This might be the time to get expert help from a credit repair company - this website has looked at a lot of them and picked the best three:

http://www.onlinebestinformation.com/cre...

Answer 4

opt out first will get you10 points 888-567-8688  Then pay all revolving cards down to 1/3 of limit and stay current always

Answer 5

You can use credit repair agency to fix your credit - for example this one - http://freecreditreport.hotusa.org - They can clean lots of such bad stuff from your credit report - and do it much faster than yourself, so your credit will go up fast.

Answer 6

Pull all three credit reports for free from annualcreditreport.com. If you want to know your FICO credit scores, pull them at MyFico.com...it will cost you to see those though.

See how bad your credit is and judge what your means are for paying down these old debts.

Make use of your power to negotiate pay for deletion agreements. If you can pay in full, do it. If you cannot pay in full, try to get them to agree to payment plans. That will give you a significant bump in your scores if you are successful.

If you have collection accounts, make sure you dispute the accounts before you pay them anything. They might not be in a position to collect on the debt legally. By disputing, you make sure you are not paying a crook.

Answer 7

Not impossible. If you haven't already get a secured credit card (Capital One is a good choice www.capitalone.com)

Get a card for say $500-1000. Charge the card every month for a maximum of 10% of the limit , no more to keep your usage low. Pay the FULL balance on TIME every month for the full 6 months and your score will start going up.

If you have any other card or loans....make sure they are current and the balances paid down as low as possible, preferably zero. I think you can pull off 50-60....100 is a stretch. Good luck.

Answer 8

check out this site, http://www.cellsware.info/restorecredit . i believe they would be able to help you boost your score by about 10 to 15 points a week!

Answer 9

Its kind of hard to say until you get your credit reports.  There could be a number of things reported incorrectly or correctly, but doing your score damage.  Always look at every part of the reported item for something to dispute.  If it is wrong, dispute it and tell them it is wrong and you want the item removed from your credit report.