[bobdole369]

Seems OK to me, just want to check with others here.

History:
Cleaned up credit starting in mid-2005. Was left with a big-daddy 1,700+ chargeoff that has a DOLA of 12-2002 - owned by a JDB. Was a providian visa that CO'd and was sold. It's stuck and I don't have the time to fight it tooth and nail anymore. several collections stayed but nothing over $500 most of them medical. Went the crown jewelers/CJ rebuilder, which put a 1500 and a 500 on all 3. After a few months of that I got the $300 Orchard card. A few months after that one I went to Dell and they gave me $1500.

Score was 597 FICO when I got the Dell account.

I used em up and am paying them off. Now at $240 on the $300 orchard and $1400 on the $1500 Dell.

Just did a Myfico and found score tanked to 567. Was expecting about 15-20 points due to the high utilization, but 30? Well also noticed a collection had come back, haven't been pursuing these like I should have been - looks like a $990 medical came back, and NCO has hard pulled.

Gonna start the cleaning again, and redouble my payback efforts. SHould be a lot easier to get these 2 accts to 5% since DW and I are moving in with a dear friend thus halving our rent payment and reducing utilities too. I got a nice new well-paying job last summer and I managed to finagle a nice raise in Oct. Doing very well ATM.

30 points for total utilization of about 50%? (remember the CJ 1500 and 500 are current and reporting $0 and $10 balance respectively.) Maybe I ought to buy a little something and run a 5%-10% balance on the $0 CJ? Granted the 2 other accounts are at 80% and 93%...

Is it the newness of the dell account (4 months old now)? The orchard is over a year and the CJ's longer than that.

Thanks

Mr. President Bob Dole

[direred]

I'm currently using about 70% of my cards, and the FICO simulator says that if I paid them all off immediately, I'd gain 30 points on TU and 60 on EQ. My highest utilization is at 90% due to a reporting lag on that card.

Don't run anything on the CJ until the balances are down a bit. Not only does overall util count, but apparently max util on any one card counts, too.

[rikers1]

The NCO inquiry and returning trade line is affecting the drop too.

[centex]

50% overall is still high, and is certainly a chunk of the drop. As others have noted, FICO also looks at the per-card percentages. Consider yourself fortunate it was only 30 points.

Age is also a factor, and the inquiry associated with the account will also be a factor.

Admittedly, if you have no immediate purchases or applications on the horizon, you should see the score increase in the next few months when you have both accounts paid off.

As you gain new accounts and have more revolving credit available, you will not see as big a hit if you have to use the toy cards for something...

[direred]

Oh, yeah, and number of cards with balances is a factor in some scoring systems too, though I don't think FICO takes that into account. Each lender that uses FICO also uses their own scorecards.