Forums
Hi,
I currently have 2 secured cards. One is 8 months old and another is a year old. What I would like to know is how long should I keep them for and what credit cards should I apply for?
I currently have an Equifax FICO score of 756 and TransUnion FICO score of 721. My EQ report is clean but with 4 inquiries and my TU report has 7 collections and 2 inquiries. Any help will be appreciated.
How to clean up my credit report?
Secured credit cards
Hi Alin,
You can keep the secured credit cards for 1.5-2 years until you build up a good credit history. Then you can talk to your creditors about converting these secured cards to unsecured ones. If you have a good payment history, the creditor will comply to your request. You need not apply with other credit card companies.
Authorized hard inquiries stay on your credit report for 2 years. If these are unauthorized ones you can dispute with the credit bureaus. Also, if these are more than two years old you can dispute these off your credit report.
As for the collections, if these are not paid off yet, negotiate payments with the collection agencies and request a "Pay for delete" (PFD) on the account. If these had been paid off long ago, you can try removing these through Goodwill letter. Get all kinds of agreements in writing.
Thanks,
Aaron
secured credit cards
Hi Alin,
I had 3 secured credit cards and I had kept these for 1 to 1 and a half years. During this time I made on-time payments on the cards and built up a good credit report. Then as i requested my banks to covert these cards to unsecured ones, the banks complied to my request :) Now, I am having a credit score around 730.
Thanks.