Should I get a credit repair service for a credit score of 670?

Noooooo

@ARE_you_kidding_me

Nooooooo to my horrible credit score, or Nooooo to paying for a credit repair service?

I checked on Credit Karma, and it says the only thing that is bad is my age of credit history!!!

Garrrr !!! I guess I can’t change that :(

Everything else seems pretty decent. I’m wondering if I should have more than 1 credit card too ? Since I only use / have 1 credit card (Capital One)

What do you think? I just want my credit score to be higher but I know it will take some time

Trust me—the best thing to do is pay off your debt and not worry about your credit score.

No. They are a rip-off and your score is pretty respectable.

@elbanditoroso @Pachy

Ok thanks guys for ur advice much appreciate, I won’t bother then :D

You can use a credit card on a regular basis each month and pay it off each month. That would better than “burning” ten $20 bills.

No. There is no need. In the first place, though not outstanding, your credit score is not awful, either. It can be greatly improved, but you can do that yourself.

Continue to monitor your credit reports through the three primary agencies in the USA. (I’m assuming you live in the USA; I would imagine that “credit scoring” or however that process is managed, is done different ways in other parts of the world.)

At least once a year (while you’re building / repairing your credit, or if you’re concerned about adverse acts or reports, etc.) you should check for a free (by law, free once per year, anyway) credit report on yourself from each of the following:
– TransUnion (transunion.com)
– Equifax (equifax.com)
– Experian (experian.com)

The way to do that most efficiently is to apply to “the next one on the list” every four months, so you’re reading a new (free) credit report three times a year.

Also by law you are entitled to enter explanatory or rebuttal comments to negative reports that might appear. For example, if a utility account had been reported as “unpaid” after you left a rental property, and had never received the bill – or if it wasn’t even your bill to begin with – then that could be explained and dealt with. Each of the agencies communicates its information to each of the others, so a response to one agency should (eventually) be communicated to the others.

By doing this you’ll be in complete control of the repair process, know what needs attention and repair, and you can watch your credit score grow in real time (but slowly).

@Tropical_Willie‘s advice is also good: In order to improve your credit score you need to demonstrate mastery of credit itself. That is, you need to have “some” accounts (too many is a bad thing, but “no accounts” is also a bad thing) and use and regularly pay off your credit and other debts.

NO!

Pay your bills, get a credit card. Pay off your balance on the card in full every month. You don’t need to use the card at all, or you can use it very little, or a lot. Having open credit will help your score. If you already have credit cards, and you are paying them off, do it. Having a balance is lowering your score. The ratio of open credit to used credit is a big factor.

Always pay everything on time.

In a short amount of time your credit score will go up.

Unless you’re planning a major purchase soon, like a car or a house, there’s no reason to quickly raise your credit score. The rest of the time you can pretty much keep an eye on things, make your payments, and your score will slowly but steadily go up. (I hear that making more than the minimum payment is better than making the minimum payment.)

As someone mentioned above, the ratio of balance to open credit makes a big difference. If you want to raise your score quickly, paying off a balance could do that. (The credit bureaus use your amount of available credit as one component of your final score. It makes up about 30% of their calculation IIRC.)

If you are planning a major purchase, try to make all on time payments and keep your balance as close to zero as possible. Also, be aware of the “credit score range.” Raising your score within your range won’t make a difference in most cases. So if you’re at 670 and raise your score to 680, you’re still considered to have “good” credit and will probably get the same offers. But getting into the next range will get you lower rates on things and save you money.

For instance, I bought a car a couple years ago at a high interest rate because I had bad credit. Through making on time payments, my score slowly but steadily went up. Later, I thought about refinancing and checked my credit score. It was somewhere in the fair range, like 660 or 670. Over the next six months I watched it carefully (my bank has a credit tracking tool) until it was above 700, then refinanced my car at a lower rate. That saved me about $25 a month, so it was worthwhile!

Read this and then you know as much as people who fix credit.

Also, I just noticed you said you already have a credit card, so for now don’t open any new ones, and just pay off the balance on your old one, and in the future always pay in full every month. Paying interest on a credit card is like throwing money out on the street. Don’t do it ever, except for sure emergency. Some people believe that it’s better for your credit score not to pay in full, and that is bullshit. My husband and I have paid in full our entire lives and his credit is in the 800’s and mine in the upper 700’s. We have had mortgages and years with no mortgages and times with car leases, and sometimes no debt at all, except whatever we charged on our credit card that month. Our credit scores over time have always been about the same.

@JLeslie

Awesome, thanks so much for your advice, really appreciate it !