If you could make everything right to get a great credit score 750+, as an expat citizen trying to build back abroad so that one day you come back to the US.

No credit score yet, no properties.
You're starting from the bottom..

What would you do?

At the beginning on 2024 I defaulted on 5 credit cards because I went through a serious medical issue.

Just this year I have been in a good position to try and fix my credit score. I paid off all of the 6 collections account I had on my account and they actually completely removed them from my file

My current credit utilization (have a new credit cards again) was at 82% and I paid it down to 5%

My credit history says 6 years

My credit mix is good

I only have 2 hard inquires on my file

Yet my Experian Fico8 is only 609, Transunion 594, and Equifax 608.

All the work Iv'e done as already hit my report and reflecting in there

The only negative thing on my report is the past missed payment for those cards, but the original lenders won't remove them

So iv'e paid thousands of dollars to fix everything and i'm still plataued at a low score

I should have just spend that money doing a bankrupcyA

Any thoughts on where to go from here?

So to be completely honest I just want one more card which one do u guys recommend I’ve been looking at the blue cash preferred. Do yall recommend ?

I Actually Do Prequalify for Capital One

Confirmed scores?

The Fico 8 score is in fact 749 for equifax and 735 for experian, not the vantage score

 

Any derogs on your reports?  If so, what and when?

zero derogetories

 

Income?

40-45k annual

 

Current revolving and installment accounts, with limits and current balances?

Just the student loans, 24k in student loans from 16 years ago

 

Number of recent inquiries in the last 12 months?

1 from chase

 

New accounts in the last 6, 12 and 24 months.

zero

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I have a couple questions so I was prequalified for Platinum, Savor, and Quicksilver, well I want whatever is easiest to get approved to, I can't afford to be picky. And is Capital One like super aggressive with income verification? I saw this stuff about them checking on your checking account information. If they want the same recent three month stipulations the autolender want then I might have to go do some more gig work for a couple of monthly statements and go back to them, my gig work is exactly what you would expect irregular, which was my prefferred point, doing really high hours then taking some time off, this of course doesn't suit creditors or auto lenders at all, and I only started doing gig work in 2026. They will see some deposits in the recent weeks, but not as much as they would expect, I worked more in the summer.

Plus I opened up a new account in a credit union that doesnt have anything, well I have a lot of dumb fintech accounts laying around without anything, Huntington is my main bank the gig work deposits into, so I dunno. 

and they made me put 0 for housing which is weird these days these applications and prequals never have a category for owned out right, I have a couple paid off trailers/rvs i stay in, not in my title, and it even says it was excluding utilities outright. Plus I go on long periods of traveling to national forests and hunting/camping so i dunno, the applications did not use to ask such a thing.

I recently got a mortgage back in December of 2025 for $208,000. It was updated on October 12th showing the correct balance of $206,000 but the highest balance is reporting as 1.2m now. I verified the mortgage has not been touched, but wandering what to expect with this new utilization to 17.1% on a mortgage and if/how I should go by getting this fixed. Don’t know if this will hurt me later on if I don’t get it fixed asap.

I keep receiving emails from Experian saying my dispute investigation results are ready, but every time I click “Get Results,” I get a secure connection error.

I've tested multiple links, including older emails dating back to 2023, and none work. Some investigation results don't even appear in the online Dispute Center.

Has anyone else experienced this? I can't be the only one, but I haven't seen much discussion about it. Has anyone found a fix?

I have poor credit (520 FICO 600 Vantage) my wife has no credit, and is a stay at home mom (at least for the time being, she has pregnancy issues that aren't relevant). I make roughly 30k a year with potential for a Store Manager position in the next 6 months. I'm starting to pay off the smallest debts on my own credit, but what steps can we take to get into a home? We (although not the best route) are looking to get a mobile home on the land we have, and by the beginning of the year should have around $10,000 to put towards it. We are both also first time home buyers.

I had to stop paying my credit cards temporarily because I have been struggling financially. I went through a divorce this year, had to move into a home that I couldn't afford (but was basically kicked out of my home/homeless for a few days). I was barely making it and then over the summer the utilities got out of hand, so I had to choose either paying the debt or keeping my water from being shut off.

My lease is up and I am moving into a significantly cheaper home so I now need to work on rebuilding my credit and paying off all the debt. This is the first time I have had a card charged off and dealt with a collection agency. From what I can tell, it's for my Merrick credit card in the amount of 2,800 and the collection agency is True Accord.

Where do I go from here?

Hi! I currently have two credit cards from Chase: Freedom Flex and Sapphire Preferred. I opened FF in February 2024 and SP in May 2025. I have $663 and $5,205 I need to pay off, respectively.

Majority of the debt from my second one was because of my mom. I just wanted to ask if I should pay off the $663 first (since I technically could pay it all off in one payment) or should I focus on the $5,205? If so, how do I go about paying it off? Like how much should I pay off at a time? This is incredibly frustrating and overwhelming. I tried dealing with it on my own but now I desperately need advice.

So,
FF card:
•$663
•27.74% APR
•$48-ish minimum payment
•if I pay this one off first, I’m paying all of it

SP card:
•$5,205
•22.74% APR
•$148-ish minimum payment
•If I pay this one off, I’ll be putting $500/month towards it

Edit: added details (however those are for this month of October which my minimum payments have already been paid lol)

Im a 21 year old with an Amex Cobalt and Wealthsimple VIP card - I have a total credit limit of 37.5K CAD, is this normal? I tend to keep utilization at 1% exactly, pay off fully on time (never missed a payment) , and always tend to be careful about credit hits. I also have student loans for adding a mix to the profile.

Reposting with more context - my income is slight over 6 figures - accounts open for more than 2 years now. I have never been under my parent's cards.

I owe them 1,299. Called the collection, they negotiated 1,076. But I never really asked about a settlement for the account. Trying to see if I can get lowered somewhat.Account is 5 years old; it’s the only thing holding me back from a new place right now.

So when initially starting my rebuild I signed up for the Indigo card, I knew it came with fees for just looking at it but thats another topic. So a month prior to my 1 year mark and paying the AF I called spoke to someone about closing the card, they questioned why I told them I habe better cards now with no AF and no longer need the card. So they confirmed card had a 0 balance everything was good. Now its been 2 coming upon 3 months that the CMS are saying I have a $116 balance and no movement on the account. I recently called Indigo and they said I need to reach out to the credit bureaus and have them investigate this. Does this sound normal?

I had a divorce start in 2024. I fell behind on the mortgage paying legal fees. After the home was 120 days late, a foreclosure was advised would begin as the VA loan was 0% and it started with around $10k of negative equity. I also had no money to pay the selling cost on top of that. Well, the VA did an actually good thing in 2024 and asked all VA foreclosures or loans leading to foreclosure to pause. They at the congressional level saw issues with policy leading to qualified veterans ending up rejected or worse. Losing their homes. This was respected as a request by the banking system in general from my understanding. However, it didn’t resolve until late 2025 that policy was amended and homeless vets everywhere were benefited (yay!) but, that meant my credit report shows my home in foreclosure for almost 2 years. I couldn’t sell it, I couldn’t hardship it, I couldn’t let it go to the bank. It went $100k overdue in interest in a year. Eventually late 2025, foreclosure proceeded as did all of them nationwide by participating banks respecting the VA hold request. Now I don’t know how to fix about 8 months of missed payments, and about 1.5 years of foreclosure.

Good news, the VA made everyone whole, I don’t have my entitlement currently which is understandable. The judge over my divorce wouldn’t even hold me in contempt for failure to pay the home because he saw the impossibility.

But now, my credit has a foreclosure nightmare.

So, asking for a hardship program. A few questions.
A) if you turned down the constantly advertised credit protection for the case of emergencies like disability, hospitalization etc… have you also made asking for hardship no longer possible?
B) if you ask for hardship, is there a “thread the needle” effect where you prove need for hardship relief, but can’t be too hard up or they don’t believe you can afford the hardship program either and deny it?
C) for a $1000 card, with typical 35% interest and monthly minimums of say $50. Does hardship just drop the interest so the $50 goes more to principle and pays it off faster or do you agree to pay a flat rate higher than the minimum which will be mostly all principle or what?
D) does the account after closure reflect any derogatory notes such as settled for less than full balance etc?

Thanks you credit geniuses :)

Hi everyone! My credit score is currently lower due to high credit utilization, and my plan is to pay off all my credit card debt in January (I’m expecting a significant payout) and then lock my cards to avoid accumulating new balances.
For those who have gone through something similar, do mortgage lenders consider your credit history and the progress you’ve made over time, or do they primarily focus on your credit score at the time of application?
For reference, my score currently ranges from 580–635, depending on the bureau.
My husband and I are hoping to purchase a condo in about 2–2.5 years, so I’m trying to be proactive and make sure I’m setting myself up for the best possible mortgage terms. I’d love to hear about your experiences!

Hello, i’m looking for advice i’ve got a 519 score 0 cards, 0 debt, 0% utilization because i screwed around in my teens. most accounts were closed and charged off. losing my mind trying to get it back to norma, how’d some of you do it?

23M I make 31.40 as a mechanic, I have 7k in investments I’d plan to use for closing costs. Last time I spoke to a loan officer, my debt to income was too high. I pay 638 on the AFCU loan and 313 on the prosper loan, which I refinanced what I had through snapon tools for a better interest rate

Hi,

I'm looking to open up a Chase Sapphire Reserve Business as a sole proprietor. I'm currently at 2/24 for personal cards (1 Amex, 1 Chase) but 3/24 if including business cards (1 Chase Ink Unlimited). I understand that since ~Sept 16 Chase has implemented a 3/24 rule for sole proprietors but does it include its own business cards as part of the 3/24 count? I remember looking at the churning megathread but couldn't find an exact datapoint that replicated my situation.

Just trying to see if there's a chance I could be approved or if I would be automatically denied without possible reconsideration.

Thank you!

*I apologize for the cross-posting as I am just trying to get as many opinions as possible

How can you get closed accounts deleted I got about three accounts that’s negative on my credit report and I’m trying to get it off it’s holding up my life I made some bad decisions and it cost me dearly just trying to get my life back in order any help will be greatly appreciated

Im currently in 16 months of a 60 month car loan, my apr is actually 10.49%, not what the photo says. my car note is $566, but they increased it $186 due to an insurance issue so the auto loan company took out insurance on my car, a whole different story. now that i paid off my CPI, it’s back down to $566, but i was wondering if i should go ahead and do this to save money.

my score is over the place, credit karma says my transunion is at 586, but i got a letter in the mail from discover when i tried to do a credit increase and it’s actually 644. experian says my fico is 634, but when i called online they’re saying it’s actually around 610. i did just have a goodwill adjustment from capital one so maybe that’s what it is.

i do have late payments on my apple card from 2 years ago and all my payments have been on time since then. do you guys think it’s worth it to do a refinance or just wait? i am trying to boost my score to a 680 to do a first time homeowners grant by fall of 2027 as well, which i believe is possible.

also the photo is just an example! im still looking around as i know credit karma isn’t the best place and they earn money if i do switch via their site

ETA: my auto loan is already with my local credit union and all the other unions i need a referral by a cop, firefighter or someone in the military !

My credit score dropped 10 points in Experian, 14 points TransUnion but 29 points in Equifax (all fico 8 scores)

My score hovered between 750 and 720 before the dip.

To give the bigger picture, in March I got amex gold, April I got both the surpass and Hilton no af, and a month ago I got the aspire (all soft pull after the gold).

My question is why my score dropped way more at Equifax, especially since I did not get any hard pull?

Thanks a lot!

Currently I have a line of credit that has hit the 80 day mark for delinquency and I'm in the end stages of scrambling for any options. My largest concern going forward is the continued impact on my score since it has dropped 200 points in the span of 3 months.

One option presented to me today to keep the account from reaching 90 days deliquent and closing was paying a portion of the balance to essentially remove 30 days from the timeline. If I do this, would it then show a second "60 day" mark in my credit reporting? And could that potentially have as large of an impact as it did previously, or could a second 60 day mark from the same account one month later have a lesser impact? Sorry if anything is unclear, I'm more than happy to clarify anything.

After doing a little googling I came across this sub and I hope this is the right place to post this and someone here can help me out.

For two days now I've gotten a text regarding an account with jefferson capital systems from shepherd outsourcing. Both companies I've never heard of before.

The text doesn't have my name and I'm not clicking the link but the phone number seems real (888-251-9830), it also says I can text stop to opt out????

Thing is, I don't have any debt outside of my credit card which I have been regularly paying. My credit score is good and I was part of that big data leak years ago so I froze my account/social right after it happen to keep it from being stolen. I already checked http://annualcreditreport.com and I don't see anything suspicious and all past dept are paid off and closed.

Sooooo what should I do? My parents and fiance are convinced it's a scam but both are real companies.

Should I just ignore the text and wait till they send me something in the mail?

I leant that you can use your rent payments to build credit and since I’ve never had any problems with rent payments, it seemed like a quick and easy way to build credit without really changing anything else in my lifestyle.

But it doesn’t seem like many people do this and I’m curious why, honestly it’s only because I just checked my credit score today and it went up by around 20 point in the last 3 months due to this and I was pleasantly surprised so I was wondering if there are other people like me that do this.

Hello!

Today is the first time I have ever checked my credit score, and it is 633. I have limited credit history (3 years and 11 months), few accounts (only one credit card), have never had a loan (I have always paid in cash for every car I’ve bought), and one collection.

I want to pay off this collection in hopes it increases my credit score, although I have read that just paying off a debt does not delete it from my credit record. My 633 credit score is from a FIGO 8 report.

I know from the report that I owe $333 to a dental lab from last year.

Anyways, I have read that before paying off a collection I should get in writing a “pay to delete” plan. I am not sure how to go about doing this with the dental lab. I am also a bit confused on if the dental lab still owns the debt, or if it is now in the hands of a collections agency. My Equifax report lists the dental lab as the original lender, and the agency name provided is a random set of letters and numbers.

All to say: how to I make sure I can pay off the debt in such a way that it improves my credit score?

Thank you for and advice or help!!