Long Credit Report

[tammy8]

What is the name of your state? NC

I am in the process of cleaning up my credit as in paying off my credit cards (hooray for me!!!). Anyway I got a copy of my credit report last week.

I had been told last yr when I purchased my last vehicle that although my credit was great (not late or past due on anything) that my beacon score was still pretty bad. I have since closed a lot of "house" accounts showing up but wondered how long these accounts and how long prior car purchases stay on the report? Is it 7 yrs like everything else? Is there anything I do to remove these any quicker?

Thanks in advance!

[bigun]

Positive accounts history will stay for 10 years. What do you mean by "house" accounts? What are the reasons the CRA's say is lowering your scores?

[tammy8]

I am sure I cam using the wrong wording. By house, I meant department stores ie Penny's, Sears, Victoria's Secret and other smaller dept stores.

I am thinking that I was told I had too many open accounts and too much debt to income ratio but of course this was told to me by a finance manager of an auto dealership. This is why I have closed so many accounts (plus we all know those little bills under $500 get us all in trouble).

So the good reports, dont effect my beacon score? I am not planning on making any major purchases soon so beacon scoring really is not a factor to me but none the less I would like to know that I could buy a house with no problems if I needed to.

[bigun]

OK, these are department store accounts.
First, get copies of your report from all 3 CRA's and check them for accuracy. Correct any errors.
Here's some good sites for credit scoring info.
[url]www.myfico.com[/url] will give you a rough breakdown of the importance of different factors. [url]www.creditboards.com[/url] and, [url]www.creditnet.com[/url] have a lot of posters pretty knowledgeable about the mechanics of scoring. Creditboards has a pretty active mortgage forum that'll help.
Credit reports don't show your income so likely, he meant the debt/income ratio was skewed on whatever internal scoring model the finance company uses. Keep in mind, FICO {beacon} is just a set of data. Individual companies can take that data and give it different weights and come out with a different score than is on your reports.
There was a post yesterday on creditboards that is a great example. A guy applied for a mortgage and he saw the trimerged report the mortgage company pulled. The data was the same as was showing on his reports but, the scores were way different. He had a lot of baddies on his report and the lender's model was less forgiving.
If you have no derogs, just pay your bills on time and in the agreed amount and keep educating yourself about credit and you'll be fine. That history of good payments will certainly help your score.