FICO Score

[swanson719]

Checked my FICO today and it's 653 with TransUnion. I just paid off my auto loan a few days ago which hasn't hit yet. We pay our mortgage a month early every month, but don't pay over the minimum yet as we're still working on our Emergency fund. I've never had a credit card, and will not get one, period. I have a few dings on my credit report, all but one at least 2 years old. I thought I had cleaned everything up 2 years ago, but when I went to buy a house this last summer, the credit report came up with a $450 medical bill from 4 years ago that was obviously in collections. I paid the stupid thing in August. How do I go about raising my credit score without taking on any new debt? The only thing that we currently have between my wife and I is our mortgage.

[ksluis62]

You can examine your credit report closely and correct any inaccuracies. I assume you've done that already. You can challenge each and every one, and force the creditor to show proof of the delinquency. It is possible that some of them will not bother proving it, or will miss the deadline to do so, thus forcing removal. You could write to each creditor ask them to remove the late reports, out of the goodness of their hearts.

Outside of these ideas, the passage of time will improve your score. Delinquencies carry less weight the older they are. It sounds like you're on track for a pristine credit report in the future, when all the delinquencies roll off after 7 years.

Do you have a need for a higher FICO score right now? Are you still trying to buy a house? 653 is not a horrible score. I'm guessing you can still get a mortgage with appropriate down payment, but you will pay higher interest than if you had a 750.

[FrugalFish]

DH and I just recently put in for a refi and part of the process is that our transunion scores were disclosed to us. Transunion included "score reason codes" that informed us how our credit score could be higher- my understanding is that those codes must be disclosed by law and those will give you ideas as to how you can boost your score.

Since you've had a few dings in the past and a few things to clean up, time to prove yourself may be the thing your credit score needs the most.