accounts-open » Mortgage and Insurance

Dear Forum Members,

I need your opinon on something.Â Currently I am at 549 TU and 543 EQ.Â My Experian score is unknown, but should be in line judging on my report.

I have 3 accounts open, which are Wells Fargo Secured CC ($1,000 CL), US AIrways CC ($500 CL), and a Cap One ($1,000 CL).Â They are at 50% utilization, but will be paid off this month.Â They have one 30 day late each which was over one year ago (currently GW’ing each one in hopes of removing that baddie).

I have one collection and 4 charge offs on my account, which I am send PFD letters to.Â One is an American Express CC, which I will pay off by the middle of next year in the hopes of obtaining an Optima CC (I suppose that is there second chance CC).

My question is whether I should open an USAA Secured CC with a $1,000 or $1,500 limit at this time?Â If I do, this will give me 4 accounts which will be active and I WILL keep them in perfect standing with less than 3% balance utilization each.

If you think it is a good idea to get a secured CC, then maybe you can let me know if there is a better one than the USAA out there.

If you think it is a bad idea to get another secured CC, then maybe you can tell me of another option or whether I should just keep the 3 accounts I currently have.

Any help and ideas to raise my score would be appreciative.Â Thank you.

So I decided to pull my credit today for the first time in about a year, I thought it would have gone up. Since I last pulled it, I purchased a house, purchased a car,Â had paid 99% of my bills on time (i forgot I bought somethign on my Kohl’s card and missed a month, darnit), and in general thought I was doing well.

The results:

EQ – 4/09: 639, 5/10: 608

TU – 4/09: 629, 5/10: 599

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Grr. So, I’m starting project credit score improvement, and I have a couple of questions.

Background:

Collections: 2

Ratio: 71%

Accounts with late payments: 7

Total late payments: 12

Revolving accounts – 16k

InstallmentÂ – 24kÂ (student loans, cars)

mortgage – 224k

# of accounts – 28

accounts with balances – 11

accounts open in past year – 1

recent inquiries – 11

Other: I have 3 accounts that have 0 balance that show “payment after charge off/collection” from 4 years ago

The only open credit cards I have currently areÂ Kohl’s (CL $100/bal 0) and Best Buy (CL $600/bal 450 – will pay off in about 3 months),Â andÂ a Chase on which I am an authorized user (CL $2100/bal 1800).Â

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Next Steps:

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GW letters for late payments (I hope to get lucky, the large majority of my late payments are in a 6-month period in 2005-2006 when my husband was out of work, so hopefully my sob story will work on some of them). From what I’ve seen, very few have any luck with GW’s from Chase (who manages my Kohl’s) account, and that’s where FOUR of my lates are showing up. But I’m going to try.

GW letters for collections (I’m keeping my fingers crossed, I have 2, these are seriously minor and silly, all less than $200 – one I was trying to dispute when they sent it to collections and one is a medical bill)

Keep paying bills on time (Which I do very well in general – although you wouldn’t know it from my score!)

Should I?

1. Remove myself from a closed CC my husband has on which I am an authorized user? It is a closed account and the balance is 7k.

2. Apply for new credit (I don’t think so, I don’t think I’m likely to get it but I obviously need some major help with my ratio)

3. Do anything else I haven’t thought of?

Thanks for any help. I’m tired of living in the bad-credit-morass.

Mortgage and Insurance

Another Secured CC or Any Other Ideas?

My credit dropped 30 points over a year…YIKES.

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