Question about credit scores

[old woman]

Try to get an installment loan not just revolving credit. I applied for a mortgage and my FICO was about 767-790 but it said it was that low because I didn't have an installment loan. A mortgage is an installment loan if you have a regular one but I had mine as an HELOC is it was revolving.

[happy2bretired]

My daughter took a phone call one day from Target. They wanted ME to open a charge account. My daughter, not knowing too much about credit when she was probably 16, said "OK". I asked her what the phone call was about after she hung up.... I didn't want that account and she signed me up over the phone without my knowledge. I cancelled the card later. That's just not right at all.

Also, my wanting to know my credit score this year and not being able to get into my own records at the "free credit report" site from two companies, I opted for the paid report. I was able to get all three companies with no problem since I did know the information that was required for one company but not the other two. (scewy questions in order to get access). Anyway, somewhere along the line I must have signed up for the monthly "watch" thing where they watch your account to make sure nothing bad is happening. So, now, dumby me is paying $12.95 per month for that. I need to call them to see if I signed a contract for a year or something.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by happy2bretired I didn't want that account and she signed me up over the phone without my knowledge. I cancelled the card later. That's just not right at all.

It's awful. I hope you did not get too upset with her, even though that might be the natural reaction, since they were really victimizing her as well as you. Sixteen year olds can't help being a little naive and that sounds like the kind of trouble I used to get into at her age. Poor kid!

[happy2bretired]

I think my daughter has learned quite a bit about credit since then. She has her own credit card now and knows her credit score. She doesn't use it very often except when we go on vacations and she pays it off right away. I'm very proud of her. So far she is a very LBYM kinda gal.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by happy2bretired I think my daughter has learned quite a bit about credit since then. She has her own credit card now and knows her credit score. She doesn't use it very often except when we go on vacations and she pays it off right away. I'm very proud of her. So far she is a very LBYM kinda gal.

She sounds like a great kid!! Good for her to be so quick to pick up so much information at such a young age.

[SecondCor521]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moemg Your credit score is based on your credit availability to debt ratio.

...among other things. Fair Isaac and Co (FICO) is the only one who really knows the algorithm, and it's quite complicated. But here's a decent article to look at that talks about the main considerations:

Learn about Credit Scores at Quicken Loans

2Cor521

[jazz4cash]

Every time I think of FICO scoring, I get this image of a guy that just cut my lawn trying to sell the grass clippings back to me. I recall just about 7 yrs ago, my mortgage officer told me they could not reveal credit scores to customers (as he whispered our scores to us). The FICO people believed that if consumer behaviour was influenced by people knowing thier credit scores, the validity of the algorithms would be compromised. I believe this is correct, therefore credit scoring is a sham in my opinion.........just consider they are making judgements about your ability to pay without knowing ANYTHING about your assets, only your debts and payment history. In recent years, not only do they reveal the scores, they charge for the priviledge. That said, I do pay for credit monitoring service ($90/yr) that includes a free "FAKO" score, but its mainly to ensure no accounts are opened without my knowledge. Some of the rationale they use for why your score is x or y is preposterous. Here's a quote from a recent summary: "Credit reports with approximately 30 years of history are consided optimal." My oldest account is 28.4 yrs old, but my average account is only 7.25 yrs old.

[travelover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazz4cash Every time I think of FICO scoring, I get this image of a guy that just cut my lawn trying to sell the grass clippings back to me. .........

I love this analogy. I've always felt the same about medical records - every $10 / hr. administrator can see them but not you.

[Achiever51]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dawg52 It was opened almost 2 years ago. If done as stated above, I wonder why it has not been used?

Perhaps you had another credit card with a firm/bank that closed or sold its accounts to CitiBank? At least that's what happened in my case several years ago. I opened a store credit card just to benefit from a special 25% off offer as I was buying several major appliances; the offer included no interest for a year. After buying and paying off the appliances, I didn't use the credit card again. About a year and a half later, I suddenly got a credit card from CitiBank that I had not requested. I called to complain and learned that my "inactive" account from the big box store had been sold to Citi and they elected to send me a new Citi card, hoping that I'd resume using it. I just cut it up...but it did increase my credit score because they offered a pretty high credit limit.

Don't know why you didn't get the card though. Maybe you threw it away without opening it, thinking it was junk mail??