c/credit-advice

Hit 700 credit score today after 6 months of work

I was stuck at 620 forever because of a medical bill I didn't even know went to collections. Has anyone else had luck getting one of those removed early or did you just wait it out?

Forgot to update my address and it cost me $280 in denied claims

Last month I moved to Austin and thought I had updated my address with everyone. Turns out I missed my credit card company. My $450 medical bill got sent to collections because the statement went to my old place and I never saw it. By the time I caught it, my credit took a 35 point hit from the collection notation. Has anyone else had this happen from a simple address screw up?

My credit score dropped 40 points because of a $3 library late fee

I check my credit score every month like clockwork, but last Thursday I logged in and saw it dropped from 740 to 700. I panicked thinking someone stole my identity or something. Turns out a library in Austin sent a $3 late fee to a collections agency. They never called me or sent a warning, just straight to collections over pocket change. I paid it off same day and called the agency to ask for a goodwill deletion. The rep told me they see this all the time, small debts getting outsourced to collections without people knowing. Has anyone else had a tiny bill wreck their score like this?

Stood in the checkout line and realized my credit card was the problem

I was at the grocery store last Wednesday and the guy in front of me pulled out a store card to get 5% off. That got me thinking about my own card, which gives me nothing back. I checked my credit score later and saw it was at 720, so I applied for a cash back card with no annual fee. Got approved in like two minutes. Has anyone else just sat on a bad card for years without realizing what else was out there?

Paid $30 for a secured card and it jumped my score 40 points in 3 months

I put down a $200 deposit on a Capital One secured card last fall and used it for nothing but gas each month... paid it off right away every time and my credit score went from 520 to 560 without doing anything else. Has anyone else seen that kind of jump from just one secured card?

Compared two credit monitoring services side by side and one was a mess

I signed up for Credit Karma and Experian last month because my score took a 40 point dip out of nowhere. Credit Karma showed me a utilization spike from a missed statement date, but Experian had the same info buried behind three clicks and a pop-up ad. The difference was night and day for actually figuring out what happened. Has anyone else found one service way easier to read than the others?

A collector told me my payment history was being read wrong...

Last month I called Capital One to ask about a late payment on my report from 2022. The guy on the phone said I was looking at it all wrong, that paying off a charged off account doesn't reset the clock like I thought. Turns out I'd been panicking over nothing for almost a year. Has anyone else gotten bad info from reading credit forums instead of just calling the bank directly?

My secured card versus unsecured card after 6 months: clear winner

I started building credit from zero about a year ago. First I got a secured card with a $300 deposit from Capital One. Then I got an unsecured Discover card after 4 months. The secured card did help me get my foot in the door, but after 6 months the unsecured card was way better for my score. The secured card never gave me a credit limit increase, but Discover bumped me from $500 to $1500 automatically. Also the secured card had no rewards, while I earned $50 cash back on the Discover. Has anyone else found that moving away from secured cards faster helped your score more?

Had a chat with my dad about his old credit card habits

He was telling me how he got his first card in the 80s and just paid the full balance every month without thinking about rewards or rates. It hit different because he said he never even knew his credit score until he was 50, but he always had perfect payment history. Made me wonder if all the points chasing and rate shopping we do now actually helps or just complicates things?

Last week I got denied for a credit card I thought was a sure thing

I've always been the type to chase rewards cards and thought my 750 score was good enough for anything. Then Capital One turned me down for their Savor card because of a 2-year-old late payment on a store card I forgot about. That rejection made me actually pull my full credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com for the first time. I found two small medical collections I never knew about, one for $67 and another for $112. Getting those removed took a week of calls but it bumped me up to 780. Has anyone else had a denial expose hidden stuff on your report?

Pro tip: Skip the $40 'credit score boost' add-on services

I wasted $120 over 3 months on a credit monitoring add-on that claimed to boost my score, and all it did was show me stuff I could get for free from Credit Karma. Has anyone else gotten burned by these upsells?

Wasted $150 on a credit monitoring service that did nothing for me

Signed up for one of those fancy credit monitoring plans back in January cause I was worried about identity theft after a data breach at my bank. Paid $50 a month for 3 months before I realized all the alerts were stuff I already knew about from free credit karma and my bank's own alerts. Called to cancel and they tried to give me the runaround. Just stick with the free stuff people.

Vent: My uncle told me to just pay minimums and I'm screwed now

My uncle Gary said paying the minimum on my credit card was fine because it builds payment history. I trusted him because he's older and seemed to know money. After 18 months of only paying the minimum on a $4,200 balance, I now owe over $5,600 thanks to 23% interest. My credit score actually dropped because my utilization hit 85%. Anyone else have a relative give them garbage advice that cost them big?

Just learned my credit score dropped 40 points for paying off a car loan early

I paid off my 3 year old Honda loan 8 months early and my FICO score went from 742 to 702. Read on a credit blog that closed accounts can actually hurt your mix of credit types. Nobody tells you that finishing payments punishes you. Has anyone else taken a hit for being responsible like that?

I finally compared my credit union's card to a big bank's and it wasn't even close

My local credit union's Visa gave me 2% cash back with no annual fee, while the Chase card I had was charging me $95 a year for the same rate. Has anyone else switched from a big bank and seen a huge difference in fees?

My uncle told me to put a small purchase on each card monthly and I blew him off for years

Back in 2014, my uncle who used to work at a bank told me to just buy a pack of gum or a coffee on each of my credit cards once a month to keep them active. I thought he was being old school and it didn't matter since I wasn't using the cards. Fast forward to last year when I went to get a car loan and two of my cards got closed by the bank for no activity. That dropped my credit score by about 40 points and I had no idea they could do that. I had to explain to the loan officer why my score took a hit and it was embarrassing. Now I set up a small $5 subscription on each card and pay it off right away. Has anyone else had a card closed on them for not using it?

Started seeing credit score drops from old paid collections reopening

Back in 2013, once a collection was paid off, it just sat there and aged off after 7 years. Now I'm seeing some of the big credit bureaus treat old paid collections as if they're fresh negative items after a resold debt or a date change. Had a $340 medical bill from 2016 pop up on my Experian report in 2020 like it was brand new after some third party bought it. My score dropped 50 points overnight and I had to fight for 6 months with dispute letters to get it removed. Has anyone else had a old settled account come back from the dead on their report? What did you use to get it fixed?

Took me over a year to fix a simple 30 dollar mistake on my credit report

Blew my budget on a secured card deposit and still got denied

I saved up $600 for a secured card deposit, thought that would be enough to get a foot in the door, but the bank in Phoenix turned me down because of a 2-year-old medical bill. How are you supposed to build credit when the gatekeepers won't even let you in?

Noticed last week how many people in my neighborhood are freezing their credit reports after that data breach

I was at the coffee shop downtown on Tuesday and overheard three strangers talking about how they each spent $15 to lock down their credit files after the news broke, has anyone else seen this sudden jump in credit freezes?.

Pro tip: never ignore a collections notice from a local doctor's office in Austin

I let a $60 copay slip through the cracks last summer (I know, stupid move). Six months later, that same little bill ended up on my credit report as a collection account. My score dropped 85 points just like that, over a single visit I'd totally forgotten about. Called the doctor's office the moment I saw the alert, paid them directly, and asked if they could pull the collection back. They said it was already with a third party agency though, so now I'm stuck negotiating with some random company. Has anyone else had luck getting a medical collection removed after paying the original provider?

Watched my credit score drop 50 points after paying off a car loan early

I paid off my 2018 Honda Civic loan in full last December thinking it would help my credit, and instead it tanked my score because the account closed and my average age of accounts took a huge hit - has anyone else had a similar surprise from paying off a loan too fast?

Showerthought: My bank's fraud alert saved me $450 on a fake pizza order

Tbh, I was at a gas station in Akron last Tuesday buying snacks when my phone buzzed. The bank flagged a $450 charge from 'Pizza Palace' in Singapore. I laughed because I haven't eaten pizza in months. Called them up, got it reversed in 10 minutes. Anyone else have ridiculous fraud alerts that turned out to be real?

Thought the credit repair company was a scam until my score jumped 60 points

I signed up for one of those credit repair services back in March mostly to prove my buddy wrong who swore by them. They disputed a couple of old medical bills from 2018 that I had forgotten about, and after 3 months my FICO went from 592 to 652. I still think most of them are trash, but the one thing that actually worked was them finding a collections account that was past the statute of limitations in Arizona. Has anyone else had luck getting old debts removed without paying them?

Stop telling people to close old cards

I see it all the time in this sub. Someone posts about their 10 year old card with a $500 limit. People say close it. That's your oldest account. Closing it tanks your average age. It matters way more than the limit. Why do so many people think closing old cards is smart?