I have been current but my credit score is still lower

Do you still have a lot of itiems on your credit report? Having too many open revolving accounts can hurt your credit. If you have closed accounts that have not fallen off can hurt it too.

Ooohhh, pyb! I did know about the "too much revolving credit" part, but the part about closed accounts being on there will bring your score down? Huh. This is interesting. Thanks for posting that!

Ohhh I had heard that closing accounts can decrease your score. Never knew that if closed accounts are there on your report then it can also kill ur score. Thanks for the info :)

Take care
Nelly

Unfortunately, we want our scores to go up and an immediate fix and it just takes some time for our scores to go up :) I sure wish it was an instanteous thing. You would think that if you closed excess accounts that our scores would go up for we are doing the responsible thing, but not so. I learned the hard way that paying bills (more than the minimum on credit accounts) on time every time helps lots. My consolidation program ended about a year ago and I noticed that my score went up some but not a whole lot. I use credit way more responsibly now and it just takes time....
as pyb said, it depends how many accounts you have on your report. Also, it depends if you've applied for credit too. Learned that the hard way as well...the more you apply for credit (whether you're approved or not) that can lower your score some too. good luck to you :) :)

What is your Debt Ratio? What I mean by that is even if your current and your cards are maxed out that is going to hurt your score. If you can get your balances down on your cards....your score will definitely increase.

Too many accounts do not affect score and closing accounts tanks score. To give better advice I would need to know the status of each account. Generally payment history and utilization make up almost half of your Fico score so if you have late payments or maxed out,you need to either bring the balances down or raise the credit limits. Don't forget step two of credit repair is to slowly start adding positive accounts to your files.

Though payment history is one of the important factors that influences our scores. However,there are other factors too. About one-third of the score depends on our "utilization ratio," or how much of the available credit we actually use. It is advisable to keep the balance below 30%, or $300 for every $1000 of the available credit. Maxed out cards can kill your score too.

Take care
Nelly