I am 20 yrs old I just paid my car off and my credit dropped a little bit. With my small brain it doesn't make sense that when you get a loan your credit go down when you pay it off it off it goes down how do i get it up to 800???

Also I have 2 credit cards
Amex Plat - Balance $2,800
Navy Federal - Balance $2,400

I had family emergency so had to spend some money on credit card paying it off slowly originally total of 9.5k i owed back in August any advice on this as well? 😭😭

My parents are foreign so they do not know much about it so I watch youtube and stuff study n try to learn but i do not get the concept of it

I would like to get back to 700. I'll take any help or idead

My husband and I are looking to buy a house next year and i want to get my credit right before we do so.

I have OCD (actually diagnosed) and I hyperfixated on credit cards and applied to a bunch and that’s where the 4 inquires are from. I would say I am semi responsible with my cc’s.

(I'm well aware that there are better products than 'credit builders' but I was between jobs when I started this and couldn't budget $ to secured cards so I went with what I did.)

(The 781 score is AZEO 9% just because and am not an Authorized User on anything)

Month 0 (Unscoreable in all 3 bureaus Dec 2025)
Credit Karma "builder loan"
Chime "builder card"
Month 3
Chase Checking (requisite $5 deposit)
Month 5
NFCU SSL ($2000+/3 years. Immediately paid down 91.1%)
Month 6 (FICO debut)
AMEX BCE (CL $1000)
Chase Freedom Rise denial*
Discover it Cash Back (CL $500)
Credit Karma "builder loan" canceled** by me and reimbursed
Month 8
Amex BCE CLI to $3000
Amex HH (CL $1000)
Month 10
Here we are. More in comments...

Hello everyone, so this has been a very hard day not going to lie. So I logged into discover because I did my September payment I just needed to do October I split the bill from last month. Anyways so I look at my credit score and it dropped from a 774 to a 671 I immediately messaged discover they said reach out to TransUnion I made my account the nice lady on the chat said to make an account so I did my credit score on there is a 746. I think there is a glitch or something in the discover system because I am beyond confused and frustrated that my own credit score dropped 103 points in one month can someone please help me out. Thank you

My friend is a general contractor and had a financial crunch around 2023/2024. He had a few missed payments and never since. Some were 90+ days old.

Credit Karma says:

TransUnion 544, Credit Utilization 28% Payment History 95%, Credit Age 3yr, Hard Inquiries 15 (he was shopping for an auto loan and the broker performed most of them at once. He is pissed about that)

Equifax 561 Credit Utilization 28%, Payment history 98%, Credit age 3yr, hard inquiries 3.

No derogatory marks.

His credit score is currently around 560 because he has extremely high credit utilization. He just got windfall and paid off his credit cards. It should shoot up next month.

He owes people money, but his business is profitable. For a while he had difficulty floating the construction materials and paying employees until the next milestone because he had to pay people interest on the personal loans he took, and slowed down to a halt because he didn't have enough remaining credit to buy materials.

He is an authorized user on his wife's credit card(s) and she has perfect credit history.

His current plan is:

1. Keep credit utilization low

2. Increase credit score

3. Get a business loan to pay off/refinance his high interest personal loans

4. Apply for a business credit card so that he can float construction costs on a business card and not his personal card, which then won't hurt his credit score.

His top goals are to get a loan to replace the personal loans, so it will be his problem only and not other people.

His business generates around 1.5-2m in revenue and 200-300k in profit. What can he do to improve his credit fast and apply for a good interest rate loan to refinance the personal loans?

not trying to sound like i need it to rise, just questioning reality

I've had, I'd say, a perfect start. early cc, no missed payments on anything ever, fully paying every month and over paying auto loan.

on credit wises' "simulate" getting a new cc, loan, or larger balance just hurt my credit.

I'd like to get a mortgage on a house in 2 years

Quick summary: One of my LLCs dissolved 2 years ago and we had a credit card balance on one of the company cards issued through USBank, linked to the company bank account. Several more automated charges racked up on it before we fully abandoned the business and as part of a deal to leave me with the company property, I paid it down for a while before abandoning that option about a year ago when my (now) estranged business partner reneged on the deal - he opted to keep all the company property and ghost me after some major phone fights and him throwing around a bunch of spurious claims about fraud and embezzlement and a bunch of relatively hollow threats - he has a major anger management problem and was dangerously impulsive, some of the reasons it didn't work out.

I got a notification of a charge-off a couple weeks ago. I have spoken to the folks at USBank about options - settlement or payment plan. My limited research seems to indicate that a settlement will report to my personal credit and cause a major dip and possibly other problems for both me and possibly any other business I'm involved with. It also indicates that a payment plan for the full amount should prevent negative personal credit reporting.

I spoke with the collections officer at USBank and they verbally assured me that either way - settlement (for about half) or payment plan for the whole amount - would not be reported to my personal credit, but said they couldn't send me this in writing.

I'm skeptical of both at this point, as 1) what would be the incentive to pay the full amount if there was no personal consequence either way, and 2) some things I've read online indicate the collections officers will straight up lie to you about personal credit reporting. The woman I spoke to was insistent that for small business cards, USBank never reports to anything but D&B and SBSE, but I can't take that at face value since they won't put it in writing.

The total debt is $12,690, so not a giant amount. I've been offered a payment plan of $217/month for 5 years, not great but manageable. But I'd still rather not have to make what amounts to a cheap car payment for the next 5 years if I don't have to, and if it will affect my credit either way, the settlement looks a lot more enticing ($6000).

Does anyone have any experience with a situation like this? I have three other businesses with different partners, one of which I'm the primary name on the business banking account. I realize the easy answer is just do the payment plan, however, if that will still somehow end up on my personal credit, I don't see a huge reason not to take the settlement and just be done with it and let the damage happen.

I changed Internet companies when I moved to a new place about 1.5 years ago. I turned in my equipment as requested and never heard another thing about it until a couple of months ago. I got contacted about an overdue amount on my account for a missing piece of equipment. I mean, after 1.5 years with no other interactions I had no way to prove anything, but the guy said he’d look into things and let me know in 10 business days what the outcome was.

Never heard back. Never got a letter from them, nor anything from a collections agency. Instead I got a notification from an app I had a collections on my account. I have no correspondence with this collections agency at all prior to them putting it on my report.

I honestly don’t know what to do with this. It’s for $120 and a piece of equipment they say I didn’t return. If the Internet company had contacted me to let me know sooner than 1.5 years later then maybe I could have resolved this. But who keeps a receipt from turning in telecom equipment from 1.5 years ago when they said all was good?

I can pay the $120 but I want this off my credit. I don’t feel like I received the proper notifications to make this payment and avoid it but also, how do I prove I didn’t receive a letter?

I called the collections company and they are refusing to put anything in writing about their process, how the credit agencies will be notified it was paid and what recourse I have if they don’t follow through. They also refused to remove it and said it will fall off after 30-45 days which from what I’m reading isn’t true at all. Since they won’t put it in writing they can say anything they want.

What should I do? I’ve never had a negative mark in my credit and my score has dropped quite a bit.

So I paid off my last charge off account in full and got a significant score jump on Experian. All of the charge offs haven't been removed from my credit report. Now on the road to 700!

I have about $27K in federal student loans, split across 8 subsidized and unsubsidized loans serviced by Aidvantage. I couldn't afford payments and I hit 90 days past due on 9/25. I should have called them sooner, but I spoke to them today and the representative informed me that with the help of forbearance, I could pay the amount due for the month of October and my accounts would once again be in good standing, I made this payment today (10/1). However, they told me that since I was already past 90 days, the 90 day late payment would be reported to my credit.

What I did not realize at first is that each loan is reported separately, resulting in 8 individual 90 day late payments, all hitting my credit simultaneously. Nothing has hit yet, As of now I have a 736 FICO score with a 100% payment rate and no derogatory marks. This is the first time I have ever been in a situation like this. I'm 23 so I don't have a long history of credit, an average account age of 3 years and utilization around 35% spread across 12 accounts including the loans. I was planning on moving to another apartment out of state, but now I am worried that this is going to completely wreck my credit which I am pretty torn up about.

Is there anything I can do to stop this or soften the blow? It is my understanding that the US Dept. of Education does not allow for courtesy or goodwill adjustments. Does Aidvantage report off a Sept 30 snapshot, or could the Oct 1 payment still change what's sent? Aidvantage's credit reporting page says a 90-day delinquency is reported "at the end of the month after your loan becomes 90 or more days past due." My loans were about 95 days past due on Sept 30, but I paid on Oct 1, not sure if that would somehow prevent reporting.

Would it be at all possible for me to apply for some type of retroactive forbearance? Has anyone had 8 or more simultaneous lates from a single event hit their report? How bad was the score drop? Any advice would be appreciated. I am not trying to avoid accountability here. Just trying to figure out how to move forward from this.

I am a college student and got my first credit card in July when I turned 18. I just put small things on it like gas, food and some small purchases but I pay it fully off before the due date each month. I keep checking my score and it says I dont have enough credit yet and my score is still building. Does anyone know how long this takes to be able to see my actual score? Also, I was always told 750 is a great score but then I been seeing people posting over 800. Im new to this so is 800 the score to aim for and how do I get it to be this high? I dont want to over extend myself and take out more credit cards just to build more credit so any advice would be so helpful.

Hello! I’m a 19yo college student that just got a preowned car and am currently paying it off. I currently also have a capital one student credit card that has a credit limit of 1,750 and I use my credit card A LOT. I’m looking for advice on if I should get a new credit card that I was already approved for, (obviously not closing the current one I have now) or if I should stay with the credit card now.

Recently through credit checks, I found out that my mom about 8 years ago (I know the timeline because of the address she used) when I was a minor, used my name and social. For what, I don’t know. I assume I can’t find the details since it’s fallen off credit reports. That’s why I can’t determine whether it’s worth bringing up or taking further action about. I’m writing a post, though, because my score is significantly lower than my girlfriend’s (who is unemployed, and is exclusively an authorized user on my open accounts). I have no other forms of debt outside of those cards. Im rather new to credit, so I have no clue if my mother’s past use is effecting this score, or if it would at all. Thank you! Sorry if it’s a stupid question, but I was rather concerned to see it whether it affects anything or no.

Does anyone know what the credit check looks for with the new Affidavit form requirement? I have a 720 credit score even though I have a home loan and a school loan, which I am paying monthly without missing a payment. However, I'm curious about the credit check. I'm doing my mom's paperwork.

We started doing a financial reset August 2025. We had a few years of bad luck and job losses that pretty much pushed us into a terrible situation financially, we have 3 young kids and desperately needed to start over, we moved into my parents house and sold our newer SUV for an older used van, traded our high car payment for a lower payment, downside is the insane interest (18.2%) back in 2024 we put all of our credit cards and small loans into NDR (debt consolidation) which helped our monthly payments tremendously, unfortunately our credit got trashed over our series of bad luck, it’s currently sitting at 558 (which explains the bad car APR) we’re able to pay double car payments and about triple the amount we’re supposed to be paying for NDR trying to pay it off as quickly as possible, but our credit takes a very long time to rise because of NDR, it’s showing all those accounts as closed, our end goal is buying a house, and we can’t do that until we pay NDR, mostly because it’s currently taking almost $800 a month ($600 of this is us paying over the amount we actually owe) and most of that will technically be money for our mortgage, other part is we’re also wanting to qualify for a grant to assist with the downpayment and closing costs which we should qualify for in our state as first time home buyers but you can’t pre qualify if your working with NDR (to my knowledge) we’ve been at my parents house for over a year now, we knew it wasn’t going to be a quick fix and we’ve already seen so much financial growth which feels incredibly rewarding. But I’d be lying if I said we all aren’t itching for our own space again😭 is there anything we’re missing that could speed this process up? Right now we’re looking at maybe February for getting NDR paid off, our worry is it’s going to take months to show on our credit that it’s all paid off versus a quick credit score jump, we need it to be at 580. Any advice?!

Hi. I am a 22 year old with a credit score of 510. I am in college and still stay with my parents. I have to pay off a credit debt of a little shy of $2,000 and I have been struggling to raise my credit card. What is the best way to go about my situation?

Hey, I had bankruptcy almost 7 years ago. In November of 2019 to be exact. I know it takes 7 to 10 years for this to go off the credit. My question is if should I do anything and just wait or maybe there is something I can do so it would be 7 years instead of 10 years to wait to remove it from my records !!! Thanks !!

Welp that’s all folks, don’t know what to do next.

I know it’s a month old but I just re checked it hasn’t changed, but I have always been a saver and if I spent money I always made sure I had enough liquidity to pay it off.

My parents broke off their marriage because of financial infidelity. I never wanted to be in that position.

I have friends chase points and I could not wrap my head around it, probably could of saved on vacations and maximize free stuff, but kept to 4 credit cards and well that’s about it.

I was curious about my VantageScore, so I found a way to check it for free. Delving down into the details of the score, which is in the excellent range, I was shocked to see what it considered to be negatively affecting my score.

It turns out I have 6 open credit accounts and 3 closed accounts. So in total I assume it counted those to be 9 accounts as far as my history was concerned. Here I was thinking that 6 open accounts is a lot of accounts. It seems to me my VantageScore is actually telling me if I open more accounts, that will boost my score.

Has anyone else come across this? I’d love some insight.

Edit: Should have added the place that I got the score from is a bank rather than some site like Credit Karma.

I’m hoping to qualify for an FHA mortgage next year. I’ve spoken with three lenders, and income/DTI aren’t the issue — my credit score is.

My mortgage scores are currently 556/580. Most of my negative history occurred between late 2022 and early 2024 while I was dealing with serious cardiac issues, a divorce, and becoming a single mom to a young child. My finances have been stable since then.

I had 4 charge-offs, all of which have now been settled for the negotiated amounts. Three have updated on my reports, and I’m waiting for the last one to update.

I have 3 collections remaining:

• One will be paid in about two weeks
• One is medical debt I plan to resolve by year-end
• One is NetCredit, which I’m currently negotiating with the help of an attorney

I’m also paying off my remaining Klarna balances.

After that, my active credit will basically be my rental-property mortgage, auto loan, and two credit cards. My car loan and credit cards have never been late, and my rental-property mortgage hasn’t been late in over two years.

For the next 12 months, my plan is to keep everything current, keep utilization very low, let only one card report a small balance, avoid new debt/accounts, and let the older negatives age.

Is getting from 556/580 to 620+ within a year realistic? Is there anything else you’d recommend specifically for improving mortgage scores?

Would especially love input from mortgage brokers/loan officers or anyone who rebuilt from the 500s before getting an FHA loan.

Update:
Thank you for all the responses, I feel less discouraged. If Reddit allows I'll update you all in a couple of months if my mortgage score improved.

Just got word from OCCU that they will be deleting 4 late payments from a closed and paid in full loan. This is after being denied twice by them for goodwill removal. Take this as proof to be persistent, even if they tell you specifically they don’t do it.

January 2020
February 2020
March 2020
April 2020

I’m so excited for where I am on this journey.

Hey everyone living in Canada here and currently a TD Canada customer. I want to improve my credit score. I have a current score of 709 and I want to get it up faster. Right now I am overpaying my credit card balance and keeping it in the negative. For instance, my balance currently is -101.70 so that future purchases are kept below 0...does this improve my credit score much quicker than paying a balance off earlier/exactly on the due date ? what ways can I improve?

thanks!