so i cleaned up my credit reports, and im still being denied credit and my score hasnt increased... why?

Question

i have some charge offs on there from a time when i was out of work on medical. ive paid em off and they changed it all to pays as agreed and its positive on my reports now. nothing negative showing on my report now -- so how come my score has not increased and im being denied credit???? how long does this take? i paid everything off this past may.

Answer 1

Congratulations on taking care of those badd accounts. The only thing is that by taking care of that, you only "stopped the bleeding" which is only ½ the battle. What I mean is that you have to have active accounts constantly reporting in order to build credit. Do you have any open accounts that you're paying on time? If the answer is "no", then that's the problem. And you mentioned that you're not able to get credit, then I have a couple of tips to help you get build credit without getting declined.

First, you might want to check where you do your banking to see if secured credit cards are offered. A good way of decscribing it would be building credit with a savings account because that's bascially how it works. A deposit that's usually tied to a savings account is placed upfront as collateral to establish a credit line in the same amount. For example you put up a $250 deposit, then you'd get a $250 credit line. While the deposit wouldn't be used to pay for whatever's charged on the card unless it was sent to collections and charged off, it does gain interest while you're building credit. More importantly, it helps to increase the limit by adding to the deposit often, because it looks good to have a high limit on your credit cards when it reports. Some tips to make it easy to take care of the card are spend no more than $20-50/month, pay it off in full, and repeat the process. You want to keep the balance at the bare minimum or at 0 if possible. Usually after a year of paying on time and keeping the balance low or at 0, the card either converts to a regular card or a better card's offered altogether. By that time, offers for more credit should start coming again, but I would suggest opening up another secured card so to minimize your chances of getting declined. Repeat the process using the deposit from the first card and add even more to it to increase the credit line. This way at least you have 2 major credit cards and then you'd need just one department store cards in order to build positive credit.

Also, what you can do is enroll with PRBC. PRBC is America's Alternative Credit Bureau, providing a helpful service to the over 50 million people with limited or no credit history. If you pay your monthly bills on time, PRBC can help you build credit to qualify for a mortgage and better interest rates.


On-time payments for the following bills are not reported to the traditional credit bureaus:
Rent
Cable
Phone
Daycare
Insurance
Electric
Natural Gas
Cell Phone

The only time your payments for these bills are reported to the other credit bureaus is if they're missing or late.


With PRBC, your on-time payments count. You build credit for paying your bills on time, even if you have no credit history. PRBC offers two simple ways to start building credit today.


Hopefully these tips will help you. I've also posted links to PRBC and several secured credit card companies

Good Luck!

Answer 2

Paying off old charge-offs will not raise your score. The only way that happens is if you pay your bills on time. Give it a while and you should see them raise after 9 mos- 1 year.
As far as you being denied credit, that could happen for a number of reasons. If someone is deciding your credit worthiness on scores alone, that could be hurting you right now. After you've paid off everything, have you tried to obtain new credit or are you carefully managing your current credit? When negative information appears, potential lenders will want to see that you are able of "getting back on the horse" so to speak. You have to prove that you've learned from past problems. So that also might be a factor.
Good luck!

Answer 3

It is not that quick. You have to establish your history again. Start over again and wait maybe 2 to to 3 years. And here's what other things you should do. Discard other credit cards you may have and just save one that's your favorite. Get a job that pays good and stay for a while say for life if you can, or keep it at least for straight 2-3 years. Pay all your bills on time religiously every month - and don't be late. Example of your bills are electric bills, water bills, telephone bills, credit card bills, car payment bills, rent bills and other necessities kind of bills. AND - stop checking your credit report often because everytime you check it - score goes down. Yah! now you've got the secret - start working on it girl. Good luck.

Answer 4

You can call customer service and ask them for re-consideration. Speaking to a real person can work wonders. They may ask you to explain something on your credit report or get more details about your financial situation. I've done this with Bank of America before. They ended up givng me a partially secured credit card. The worst they can say is no.

Answer 5

Maybe you better ring the company that is in charge of bad credit. My partner was in the same boat not under standing why he couldn't get a car loan it turned he owed $6.35 to some company that went out of business this happened when he was in his eary 20's, but soon as he paid the money everthing was fine.

Answer 6

It is going to take more time, sorry.