How bad IS my credit??

Hi, welcome!

Actually, 619 is pretty decent. You could pretty much get any credit cards you wanted, and wouldn't have too bad of an interest rate on a car loan.

You want to be in the 700's, though..The way to do this is get copies of your reports from all 3 agencies. Go through them, and start disputing the negative items. When you get your reports in the mail it will have info on how to do this, they usually include a form. Keep at them - and watch your rating go up.

There are some people on this board who have raised their credit quite a bit recently..I'm sure they'll chime in soon and explain what they did. Good luck!

Hmmm....well I did the free online report that I found a link to, the one that you can get once a year from all the creditors. I didn't get credit scores from all 3 agencies, but rather just from Equifax. They said it was my FICO credit score. And also it said that my 619 was rated as "very poor."

I'll have to look through them and see if it gives instructions on how to dispute. I printed all of my reports out here at work today. How can I dispute a negative item though if it is a legitimate bad mark? Wouldn't that be lying on my part? How long on average would it take to get my score into the 700s? I am probably going to try to apply for more financing in the very near future. I'm getting engaged and am going to try to finance a portion of the engagement ring...so that would be good as well.

REALLY?

619 was very poor? Wow, my credit rating is in the high 600's and I just re-financed my house for a much better interest rate. I know they just changed the way credit scores work, they have an A,B,D,F system now..But still!

I couldn't tell you how long it'll take to up your credit..You can dispute legitimate things as well, but I don't know enough about it to tell you how or why! Don't worry, someone will be along who does know.

Congrats on your engagement!

Hi speed,
I am in the process of improving my credit report. I have signed up for the triple advantage on Experian. This includes an analysis of my credit score. basically poor credit is below 620. Fair is 620 to I think about 700. Above 700 is good. The bottom is 330. On the analysis that experian gave me, they broke it down from High risk, to low risk in 5 categories. High, med-high, med.. etc. etc.. Of course you want a high number. Mine about 4 months ago was 470. Then I started to smarten up about credit and dealing with collection agencies. This site has been a big help by the way. Well, I pulled all of my credit reports and started disputing things. I alsso noticed that my good accounts were not being reported, mainly my mortgage. And I have a good payment history there. Anyway, my score is now 590. That's 120 points!! And I'm still disputing items. So your credit is not bad. It's not great either, but you can get pretty good loans. Experian would have you as a medium to medium-high risk. Where as I am still a med-high risk. Things that help of course are on time payments. They are a huge boost. Opening new accounts can hurt. So can inquiries. Hope that helps

The easiest thing to help it is to just keep paying things on time. If you have the monthly load down to where you can make the payments, consistent on time payments will keep that score going up.
About 4 years ago, my score had slipped. I went to refinance to pay some stuff off and get the monthly total down to a manageable level. My average of the 3 reporting agencies was right around 600. Some places I went to about refinancing were telling me I couldnt get better than about 6.5% when normal rates were below 5%. I went through a friend at Pine State Mortgage and I was able to get an FHA refi at about 4.5% variable. It is still below 6% and I will be able to get rid of the mortgage insurance premium next year!

Kinda wandered a little... Just keep paying on time and things get better. Also, dont stop at one place if they quote you some crazy interest rate!

Randy

Well here is my question, everyone keeps telling me to dispute negative marks. How can I dispute a negative mark when it is a legitimate mark?

Well I have some thoughts on that topic that may help you decide. I posted in an earlier topic about this very thing. Here is some of what I wrote in the past.
"I read somewhere that after 7 years, items drop off of your credit report, doesn't that mean that the credit bureaus are doing credit repair for us then? Why woult I wait til then, so I dispute things now. I feel that I get punished enough with all the debts and CA's I have to deal with. Here is another good point, the credit bureaus are in the business to make money, right? We know how they make money by capitalizing on our information. So why do I have to support there captilalistic ventures which can have a potentially profound negative impact on my financial life? Someone once asked me when I disputed something on my file if that was right and ethical, I used to think that way. But now, I have no moral obligation to support corporate greed because of that."

Like I've said before, I wouldn't advocate running up a bunch of bills just to dispute and not pay. I am paying on my bills but it seems like everytime I turn a corner, something else hinders me. So I feel that I am just leveling the playing field. I am paying on legitimate bills, but at the same time, I have to have a fighting chance to get by in these hard economic times and give me every edge I can get.

Outlaw...but are you lying about your reasons for dispute? That's mainly what Im after. If so that's a federal crime unfortunately.

well my parents i think has had some things in my name wich made me have bad credit how to i find out when i dont have a credit card

Anything on a credit report is disputable. You have to read it completely and be able to understand how it should read.If it is incorrect,bureau and data furnisher are legally bound by law to either fix or delete.

You are entitled to a free credit report every year...I am not sure what website offers that witou getting a cc info but I would imagine if you google free credit report you would find it....I had a friend whose parents had 3 loans out in her name before she was 20 years old...

The government-funded site that offers a FREE credit report from all three bureaus with no other program to sign up for is

http://www.annualcreditreport.com

If you Google "free credit report", you'll get LOTS of results, but all of them want money for the report or want you to sign up for a monitoring service.

You don't have to sign up for any monitoring service, give any credit card info to obtain the reports, or pay anything. The reports are free once per year, or any time you've been denied credit and have the name of the creditor that denied you.

However, if you wish to obtain your FICO score (credit score), you will have to pay for that.