There’s no way for anyone to know for sure based just on the information you provided. For example, part of the loan process also takes into account your employment. If you have a good employment history and make a decent wage, you should be able to get the loan. The bigger question is really going to be for what interest rate.

You also have to remember that cars are depreciating assets, so the rates are rarely going to be as good as say for a home. That being said, some (not all) car dealers are willing to lend money at amazing rates, so you might be lucky that way too.

Basically there’s no way to know for sure unless you try it. But if you have a stable employment history and you’re making a decent wage, and your costs of living aren’t too crazy, you should be able to get a loan at a decent rate.

In 2007/2008 (unsure of the actual date), I went to a generic website for credit cards and apparently applied for one, though I wasn’t aware of it. I have never had a credit card before, nor have I had a car loan or mortgage. I’ve been a strict cash on the barrel kind of person for all of my adult life. Long story short, the card came in with a 250$ credit limit. I used the card once to get gas (20$). The bill came in and they had added a one time fee for activating or whatever it was. I called them, because I wasn’t aware of something like this and disputed. So the bill was late. They added a late fee. Within 30 days my 20 dollar use had turned into half of my credit limit – used from their fees/late fee. So I disputed again. In three months they closed my account altogether and charged it off at 370$.
I have tried to repair my credit and 6 months ago paid them in a settlement for half of the “balance”. That is the ONLY thing on my credit record. I opened a secured credit card 6 months ago and have paid the balance off every month on time, never late. My score is now 645. Do I stand a chance of getting a car loan for a used car 18k-22k?

Ok, so here’s my opinion. Having a score of 670 already means you’re doing really good considering what’s on your record. Until those blemishes go away, it will be extremely difficult to get a score of 750.

That being said, with a score in the high 600′s, it’s very likely you will get loans. It’s an average score. That’s good considering you have some bigger blemishes. The only issue is at what interest rates. The only real benefit I can see right now of getting your score above 700 is that you’ll be able to get a better interest rate.

To be quite honest, I wouldn’t worry about it because unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be much you can do other than just wait it out.

In regards to removing the the late pays, you can’t really blame them. Imagine if everyone did that. As soon as one late pay is removed, then they have no record of it. All you have to do is repeat the cycle again and just get it wiped out.

If you lent me your personal money, would you remember that I was late paying you at some point and use that to make your decision on whether or not to lend me money. If I said just forget about it because I’m borrowing other moneys from you, would you forget about it? You’d still want to treat me more careful just in case. It’s the same with them.

You’re doing very well, so keep going in this direction. I understand it’s frustrating waiting for the credit score to improve, but that’s part of the game. The good news is that you don’t have any pressing needs to get loans. And always remember that you can refinance most loans if you credit score increases in the future, so if you need to get another car loan for example, in a couple of years when your score has improved, you can just refinance the loan on better terms.

The other thing to remember is that going higher in the scale gets that much harder. Going from 500 to say 550 is pretty easy. Going from 750 to 800 is incredibly difficult. To get in the high 700′s you have to be using a decent amount of credit with a spotless history. To get in the 800′s you need to be using even more credit and almost be paying it ahead of time, along with a perfect history.

So I’ve been playing the credit score game for a while now. I call it a game because it seems like thats what the reporting agency are playing along with me. I cannot seem to get my score above 700. I’m always hovering between 670 and 690 on my Equifax. I just checked my score yesterday and I’m at 671. My credit profile looks like this:

THE GOOD:
The following accounts have never been late with payment.

1 BOA Master Card since 2007 with limit of $300 I never use but keep open.

1 Chase Visa with limit of $2000 since 2008 which I use frequently but owe 0 now.

1 HSBC Master Card since 2006 with limit of $750 I never use but keep open.

1 Credit Union Visa since 2010 with a limit of $750 which I use frequently with a balance of $350

A Car Note paid as agreed where I owe $13,000 down from $17,000

A 30 year mortgage with BOA I’m three years into.

THE BAD:
1 charged off car loan from 7 years ago. Should be falling off my report in June 2011(Last Activity is 2004). I owed 2,000 on that. Divorce financial issues back then.

And finally 5 to 7 late pays on a old joint mortgage from a home I once owned with my X wife. Probably will fall off my account by 2014. (I read somewhere Mortgage latepays take 10 years to fall off your credit report). These latepays were as a consequence of the divorce and remains a reminder of a problematic marriage. (Last Activity is 2007). This was an old CountryWide loan that was refinanced out of in 2006 by my x wife. Bank of America purchased CountryWide, and BOA is also coincidently my mortgager for my current new home. I contacted them last year to see if they could stop reporting the deliquency going back to 2003-2004, but they refused to even though the latepays were under CountryWide and prior to BOA buying them. They also refused to take into consideration my current mortgage history and my line of credit history with them. They insist on keeping the lates on my report from 2003-2004.

In summary, all my derogatory issues took place 7 years ago. The only reason why BOA reports last activity in 2007, is because initially I contacted CountryWide via letter, to ask them to stop reporting the lates from 2003-2004 since the mortgage was sold in 2006 and zeroed out. I explained the lates were due to financial hardship due to divorce. Unfortunately that triggured them to update the date of last activity to 2007, and deny my request. So really contacting them just made my problems worse.

I know thats a lot, but I want to give you all the facts. So my question is what can I do to raise my credit score above 700? Do I need to try to get the card companies to raise the limits on some of my cards. I am only using these cards to maintain and raise my credit score to at least 750 this year. It seems like the higher the score gets, the more difficult it becomes to reach the target. I’m not currently planning on buying a car or a new home any time soon. But who knows what can happen that will require stellar credit? For example my car was totalled last year and out of nowhere I needed my good credit to qualify for another car loan quickly.

What can I do to raise my credit score above 700?

Unfortunately without a lot of details, I cannot explain the differences. The first thing to look for is are they indeed using the same credit rating agencies?

The next question is how long apart where the reports? Where they the same week?

Based on that, I would then ask how many times did you have a credit check performed between the two? The reason I ask is that each time you have a credit check done, you lose some points. Therefore if you did a check, and you possibly shopped for a car loan through a few lenders, then the dealer, that could quickly and easily explain the difference.

In case you’re wondering, the reason they do this is to prevent people from getting a ton of loans all within a few hours/days. This way each time you try to get a loan, there is a cost. And the more rapid you’re doing it, the bigger the cost. Again, this is to prevent people from going to a few dozen different lenders in a day and borrowing as much as possible. This prevents you from being able to do that.

Most likely it’s the last item. But if not, I’ve also heard stories of finance departments making adjustments to the number before they show the client. That is to say, you don’t ever really see your report, they just tell you the number. By going this route they can usually adjust the number. It’s not exactly ethical or legal, but it has happened. However I would highly doubt this is it because it’s still very rare. More often than not it’s that you shopped around for a loan and that act itself cause the score to go down temporarily.

You have a pretty complex case, even if it doesn’t initially appear so. Firstly, lenders want to look at your ongoing credit worthiness. In other words are you continuing to pay on time or was that a one time thing. Because you were delinquent before, it’s that much more important to show that you can continue to pay on time.

The best way to look at it is from the lender’s point of view. So imagine that you’re lending to a friend of yours. In the past they didn’t repay you once. Right now they have things paid for, but they haven’t borrowed money from anyone in a long time, so how can you know they will pay you back. They may seem to have the money, but will they actually pay you or just ignore the payments? You have no way of knowing because they have no history.

Similarly you have to build your history. Using credit cards and paying them off each month is a great way of doing this. It will take some time because you have to establish a history. If you look at the chart above, you’ll see that a good percentage is on showing not just that you can pay, but that you will pay.

In regards to getting your credit report, it depends. You will have to contact lender. Many times lenders have deals with the credit agencies so that they can get the reports at a discount because of volumes. This often means you won’t have access to it.

As for your history and how long it will stay on your report, it’s hard to tell without knowing the details. But my guess would be probably for a while…

I usually want an accurate credit score so I generally pay for a credit score from the actual credit bureaus equifax, trans, and experian. I noticed that when I purchase another product such as identity protector my score varies significantly by about 20 points or so. Why is this? Also when I purchased my vehicle equifax was reporting to me that my score was 620, however at the dealership they had 580 from equifax. Please explain this to me. I reviewed both credit reports from equifax as well as identity protector and the same information is there as far as my accounts.

He advised me to go and get 4 credit cards and buy gas with them paying each one off every month for a year.

Is that truly thee best course of action and quickest?

Also, delinquencies and a repo from a previous marriage when I was younger still remain on my record after a few years have passed now- How long will they potentially stay on my report and how do I even begin to dispute or correct these to have them taken off my report?
Your help and advice are greatly appreciated.
Lastly, since he checked my credit today can I then go to annualcreditreport.com or call these bureaus to have my actual report and score since it’s still in the 7 day window?