Credit Repair - How do I build/repair my credit score?

How do I build/repair my credit score?

I have very limited credit history. I started this January. I read that I have to get a few credit cards to build credit history. I have a secured card from Citibank which only has 200 credit limit. A Citibank secured loan for 500. Bank of America gave me 4000 CL for A Worlpoints Platinum Plus Credit Card. I have a ChaseFreedom Mastercard too. Thing is I'm preparing my credit history for a car loan. I applied for other credit cards in one day and got a few rejections... reason being having too much inquiry ( ok, i know i should have not made too many applications but i figured to just do it all at the same time) and too low credit line. But I never missed a payment, I only use 30% of my credit line and pay off more than the minimun balance.

Public Comments

sounds like the inquiries are your biggest problem. Personally I'd drop the secured card because it probably comes with a hefty fee, and you're obviously qualifying for better stuff. Assuming no real negative marks and a solid payment history going forward, your score will rebound in a few months.
Although there are many Internet sites that claim to be able to do credit repair for you, they cannot. When you ask “How can I repair my credit”, there are many places you can get advice about credit repairthen there is a file on you at one or all of these places.Actually no credit is almost as bad as bad credit. If you have never borrowed any money or had a credit card, you will have difficulty getting a loan.
If you don't have a variety of credit lines, you probably have not began to really build your credit as needed. You know that too many inquiries also bump your score down also. What you need is a game plan that could walk you right thru what you need to do to have good credit and be able to get the vehicle that you want. I am a distributor with VR-Tech Marketing Group/United Credit Education Services, pls visit my site at www.vrtmg.com/mcaldwell and click on the UltraScore tab. This is your game plan.
You don't really need more than one credit card. There are a lot of cards that can be had without monthly fees. Try a credit union. NEVER charge ANYTHING you can't pay for at the end of the month.If you can't, then save up so you can pay cash, or better yet, charge it when you have the cash on hand, then pay the charge off in full. Yes, you could just buy it outright, but this would not beef up your credit history. When I was going to get married I went to a jeweler and bought the rings. When I went to pay cash the jeweler asked me if I had ever had any credit. When I told him no, he told me to buy the rings on a 90 day credit. Since I already had the money it would be no problem paying monthly payments and there would be no interest charge. That would begin my credir history, since it was inevitable I would buy a car and a house on credit which I might not otherwise get. Best advice I ever got. Also, after being married a few months I DID buy a car on credit. The payments were almost exactly my extra income for the month. One day I got a bill for some unpaid tax of my wifes'. It was about the same amount as the car payment. In a sweat I went to the dealer and told him what happened, and that I could make the car payment or the tax bill, but not both, and the tax bill came first. I told him I was very concerned about what this would do to my credit. He told me it would IMPROVE my credit. He asked if I could pay anything, and I told him I doubted it, then he asked me if I could pay the interest. When I found out how little it was I paid it out of pocket, and the missed payment was added at the end. The dealer told me that I had done the letter perfect thing. If I had never had a problem and paid all installments on time they would never have known what I would do if I had a a problem.As soon as I realized I had a problem I went to the dealer, Confirmed my debt, explained my problem and set out my schedule of repayment. Moral: If you run into a payment problem, DO NOT WAIT. ASAP contact who holds your debt and let them know, and work out what you can do about it.
2 problems. The inquiries and the limited credit history. Just keep up on the credit you have that you mentioned. Keep the balance down and keep up with those timely payments. It takes more than just a few months of timely payments and low balances to get a good score. On the downside that flurry of applications likely hurt you more than you think. The limited history is bad too. This obviously gets better with time.
Ok, I can give you advice on your situation. I would chill out applying for credit right now. You already have a pretty good balance of revolving credit (3 credit cards) and installment credit (secured loan).Too many inquiries gives the appearance that you're desperate for credit. It's allowable to have multiple inquiries when it comes to mortgages and auto loans becuase it's considered "rate shopping" and the inquiries are considered as one, but for credit cards, that's that worst thing to try to apply a lot for. The 3 cards you have are fine, especially the secured one. One thing to boost your score would be to up the credit limit on that Citibank secured credit card. Actually, you could kill 2 birds with one stone by taking what you would've used for the down payment, invest it in the CD to secure a higher credit line and gain interest on it at the same time. Now, keep in mind that it'll take about 18 months for the Citibank secured card to convert and the CD will mature, but with those inquiries you racked up by applying for those cards it would be better to wait them out anyway. Boosting that limit on that secured card will help with your debt to available credit ratio which counts as 30% of your score. By doing this, and keeping the limits lower to more like 20-25 of your available credit will boost your score some. You can find more info here: http://debt.knowledged.info/credit_card.html Hope that helps.