Would it hurt me if i pay off my credit cards in full each month?

Pietra

Hi Paul!  We love your site so much & refer everyone we know.  Thank you for providing a place where people can go to get advice & help.  I’ve studied your help center & listened to your seminar several times, but still have a few questions.  If I missed something, I apologize — but I need your expert advice. 

We are trying to repair our credit.  We started 12/08, pulling our free credit report to start the process of trying to pre-qualify for a home loan.  At that time, (before we discovered brokencredit.com) my husbands scores were 599, 543, 506.  There were a lot of red flags & discrepancies that needed our attention.  We tackled the first things that stood out the most.  There were 2 tax liens that were not supposed to be there and an item that was supposed to be included in a bankruptcy that was discharged back in 2001.  We were able to get all three items removed.  We were excited, thinking that our scores would go up where they needed to be (we assumed that 2 tax liens would weigh heavily…).  We didn’t do a rapid re-score but the trade lines were removed.  There were about 3 new inquiries added when our credit report was pulled (we only authorized our mortgage agent to pull our reports).  It looks like they were all in mortgage industry.  In May we had our mortgage agent request our reports again to see if we were where we needed to be yet, hoping that our scores would go up.  Instead, our scores went down quite a bit.  Down to 587, 538, 515. 

There were about 3 new inquiries added again like before.  So we had a total of 5 inquires on 2 reports and 8 on the other.  We then discovered your site & did the “opt out” thing as suggested on your seminar.  We are still working on our report.  We disputed a few items and are in the process of building our case to have them removed.  As suggested on your seminar, we signed up on Truecredit.com to try and bump some of those inquiries.  It has been helpful to watch the reports and we finally got the 8 inquires bumped to 5 like the others.  On TrueCredit.com this week we got 4 alerts, saying that we have 3 new accounts & 1 new inquiry.  Are 2 of the NEW accounts duplicates & in addition to the previous account listed on our report?  It is an account that we are disputing w/Palisades. The new alerts said,  “Palisades, date opened 3/01/05 reported on 4/8/09, & Palisades, date opened 3/01/05 reported on 4/15/09. – both w/the same account number.  — The inquiry is with N.A.F.S. Buffalo. 

I thought that if we opted out, we wouldn’t get anymore unrequested inquiries.  Is the opt out a one time thing or a multiple thing?  My husband’s scores are now 522, 513, 517.  We just had a medical tradeline removed this month that wasn’t supposed to be there.  I thought that our scores would go up from that.  Again, they keep going down.  I feel like giving up.  Since Dec. his scores have gone down 86 pts. w/Experian, 21 w/Transunion, & only up 11 pts w/Equifax.  Is this normal? 

Is there something we are missing?  I am getting really discouraged and feel like giving up.  We were so excited about getting items removed, thinking that it would help our score but it seems like we’re stirring up a hornets nest.  I am desperate for your advice.

Please, please please help us!!  I don’t know where else to turn.

Thank you,

Cindy (more…)

My husband & I own a home with a 400K mortgage.  We want to sell & downsize to smaller mortgage.  Will we be able to do this with credit scores of 537 & 561?  How do we improve our scores within short period of time to accomplish this?

Michele (more…)

Hello Paul! First of all I want to say thank you for all the invaluable information you continue to give…you have made a true difference!

My question is this: I have succeeded to get two 30 day lates off of my credit report, but when I checked my report they also deleted all my payment history! This of course sent my scores way down. How would I get it back? Do you think this is what sent my scores down?

Thanks so much!

Reyna

I have paid off all credit some went to collections now want to try and rebuild my credit and raise my credit score can you tell me how?

Thanks
Karen (more…)

The results of the most recent Credit Repair Seminar Survey are in and it looks like buying homes are in the Broken Credit Bloggers future.  The registration page of our free credit repair seminar asks:

What would you most like to accomplish AFTER raising your credit score?

Here are the most recent responses:

• Clean up my credit files.
• Keeping it HIGH
• buying a home
• purchase home
• purchase a home
• Buy another house
• Purchase a condo
• owning a home,car,business
• Buy a home
• Get business financing
• getting a work at home job with LiveOps
• Buying a home.
• Buy a house
• buy a house
• buy a home
• First Time Home Buyer
• purchase my first home.
• pay down debt, eventually buy a home.
• Purchase a home.
• A higher score

My fiance and I are preparing to buy a house soon. Our loan officer says he needs to bring his credit score up 10 points.

We will have the money to pay off most if not all his old debts very soon. My question is where to focus our efforts for a 10 point increase.

He has about 4 misc accounts (all charge offs) that amount to about $1200 total and an auto repo that is for $16,000 (the amount owed when it was repo’d about 2 years ago).

We never recived any paper work on the repo telling us when it was sold or for how much. We live in California so the statue of limitaions in 7 years (I believe).

We do plan on settling up what is owed eventually. I am pretty sure we can get the small debts to pay for delete.

Is it possible to get a pay for delete on the auto repo? If not what is our best action.

Thank you for your help!

~Kelly (more…)

Hello Paul:

I took on the task of cleaning my credit and, when the dust cleared, I don’t have any accounts, tradelines or anything on my file. I know that authorized users are no longer effective. I heard that if you are considering tradelines, they should be joint and if you use them, you must let the creditors when you apply for credit. 

My question, is the process of applying tradelines all illegal. 

Thank you for your time and service.

Umar (more…)

OMG! This is a wonderful site.  I had never checked my credit before, now divorced, wanting to buy a home and it was now necessary.  I have brought my score up 85 points in 7 weeks thanks to this site and your free credit seminar.  I was approved for my loan today thanks to you. 

I disputed (only one item was left unchanged) since inaccurate information was all the credit bureau seemed to have.  I paid off collections in the order of earliest to latest for PFD.  I sent return receipts for validation which were ignored and so removed. I opened a secured card since I didn’t have any open revolving credit.  I became a joint owner of Sears credit with my Mom. And BAM! all added up to to points…EX 82pts, Equ 85 pts, and 65 pts TU. (* Note to readers that TU is much slower and harder to battle in my case)

I can’t thank you enough.  I am so proud of myself.  If i can do it then anyone can.  I am a single mom and a home owner!  I have never handled the credit arena before but this site has taught me well.  I am going to continue to grow….. just as soon as you teach me how the buckets work. LOL

Lynn

I read on the internet that your fico score can actually go down if you pay your credit card balance in full every month.

Someone suggested to pay part of the balance a few days before the statement cut off date and then the rest of the balance right after to avoid the score going down. Is this true?

I have been paying the full balance before the cut off date and hoping a 0 balance is being reported to the credit agencies.

I’m confused! Please clarify the best way to raise your score in a scenario like this.

Cecilia (more…)