civilservant

8.9% or below on total utilization, 28.9% on single card util, for maximum FICO points.

You should also allow one major bank card to report a balance of say $10 to show credit use. This gives maximum points for caredit cards and is know as AZEO. All Zero Except One. It doesn't work if you use a store card or sometimes a Credit Union credit card.

tht

Thanks for the reminder... with being locked down no travel and eating out so nothing was going of the CSR for 3x points... everything is going on the Amazon 5% or Citi 2% cash back. Just went on the app to double the limit on the Citi card, that should bring my [monthly]utilization on that card down from close to 50% to about 25%.

For the OP, once you get on something like Credit Karma or similar it’s easy to check you are optimizing, one thing is to remember that different lenders hard pull from different credit services (Equifax, Experian, Transunion, seems to be state dependent) so when you open new accounts try to find out which and spread it out between the 3.

the one factor that is the hardest is “average age of credit history” it’s only medium impact, but after 10 years mine still shows as orange instead of green because I am only at 4.5 years.

civilservant

Yep this is where mine took a wallop over the last few months. Went from 5.2 years down.

You also have to remember that there is also new account penalties which will apply for at least a years after you open a new account. It's usually only 5 points or so, but add that the inquiry (another 5 points) and do multiple at the same time and pretty soon it's starting to hurt.

My new mortgage, new truck, and new credit card in 3 months hurt to the tune of about 50 points.

ivanidea

I've experienced problems with my SSN, issued in 2017. Two credit card companies could not approve my online applications, but were able to approve after I phoned them, and they made further checks. They stated the problem was with my SSN.

Just this week, I had a background check for a new job in the financial sector, and the report stated there was an issue with my SSN - "Social Security #***-**-**** may have been issued as part of the SSA Randomization program. Please work with the candidate directly to validate authenticity". This should not be a problem, just takes longer to verify.

Pulaski

Yeah, someone on BE reported a similar problem (not sure if it was you), but most people are issued with a SSN at birth, so it will take 18 years from when they starting issuing the "randomized" SSNs (mid 2011) for them to start to show up in large numbers in the employment and credit/ lending fields. .... Unless you are a new immigrant, or work visa holder .... in which case, while dealing with settling into your new home and workplace, you have an SSN that causes problems.