I began working on my credit on December 1, 2013. When I pulled my FICO score with TransUnion then, it was an abysmal 496. In less than two months, though, I was able to bring increase that score by 222 points! I brought my score from where lenders would not even look at me to prime status – and I did it on my own.
When I first pulled my credit reports in December, 2013, I discovered a lot of bad stuff. For starters, there were nine (9) collection accounts, eight of which were from 2013 and the remaining one from 2012 (point: they were ALL recent collections and thus causing maximum damage to my credit score). Additionally, there was a judgment present from 2011. Multiple student loan accounts appeared, 7 showing derogatory (90+ days late) in May, 2007, 1 (a private loan) showing as a charge-off, and 1 (the consolidation loan) reporting derogatory 14 of the last 24 months and quite a bit more prior. There was only one closed revolving account on file – not showing as negative, but not really showing a payment history and it was closed. A few of the student loan accounts were reporting paid and closed (positive), but they were older and far outnumbered by the negative?
So where do you begin? I started from a couple different angles. First, you gotta have positive, active tradelines reporting if you want to build a good credit score. Even with bad credit this is still possible. I did this two ways. My first method may not be an option for everyone, but if it is, take advantage of it. I had my folks add me as an authorized user to two of their major accounts (in my case, Citibank and American Express). Their Citibank account was opened over 15 years ago, has never had even a thirty-day late, and had a credit limit of $15,000 and a balance of $100 – this is, perhaps, the truly ideal authorized user account to add. It took about 2-3 weeks for both accounts to start showing on my credit reports.
The second method is one available to everyone but one that will require you to put up some cash – and the more the better. I opened two (2) secured credit card accounts, one with my credit union and the other with Capital One. The former required me to put up $500 and the latter $200, neither of which are ideal credit limits but they are somewhere to start. Within a few weeks, both were appearing on my credit reports; with the authorized user accounts, I went from zero to four open tradelines in less than a month. An excellent start.
Roots, Credit & Life 
Hello. I’m wondering, is your score 718 even with the collection accounts?
Yes, but the only remaining collection accounts–both from the same collector–appeared on my Equifax and Experian reports only. For whatever reason, TransUnion deleted them without much of a fight. The disparity in my scores – TransUnion versus Experian/Equifax – is indicative of just how great of an impact a collection account can have on your score!