credit history

helpimcrap · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:25

this is an odd question with no exact answer but what i want to know is:

how long does it take for you to build credit history? is there a timeline or is it on useage of credit? i.e. you'd build more of a score when using a c/c than you would buying stuff with money etc? does anyone know if it will take me 6 months or 6 years to build up credit?

ATM i have adverse credit history due to medical issues and non payment of credit cards for months but i am now 100% debt free bar my car insurance.

i'm not looking to buy anything and all sites seem to insist on checking for free then roping you into monthly things.

helpimcrap · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:28

crap - a mod move to general please. thought i was in general.

silworth · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:31

I typically takes 5 years of staying "clean" to move past any adverse effects of negative marks on your history.

GinG · 13 Mar 2010 at 14:39

3 years ago I was refused for a current account. All I could get was a cash card!

I have recently opened a platinum account at lloyds, platinum credit card & was offered a 203k mortgage promise.

On this basis I would say 2 - 3 years to build it back up to scratch.

helpimcrap · 13 Mar 2010 at 17:23

thanks for confirming what i thought. for the next 5-10 years forget about anything debt related and just use what i've got. crap.

can anything on a credit report be reversed for extenuating circumstances?

hate to harp on about it all the time but basically i spent a long time in hospital and was unable to pay any bills physically so apart from those 8 months i have been fine never missed a payment.

taximike · 13 Mar 2010 at 19:29

being debt free isn't the best way to build your credit report up, in fact, it will probably hurt your chances of repairing your score.

Every payment you make on time to a credit card will give you a green blob on the credit report. The ratio of green blobs to orange (1-2 months late)/red (3+ months overdue) ones is a big factor. So if you have a lot of missed payments in the past and you now don't have any credit then the ratio of missed payments to payments made on time will be higher than it should be. Get yourself a mobile phone contract and pay it on time, get a credit card for some of your purchases and again set up a direct debit for the full amount. There's really no reason to use a debit card given the benefits from credit cards, i.e. airmiles etc.

Percentage of available credit used is a big factor too, so again, if you can get some credit cards with high limits and then pay them off in full every month, you use a low percentage of your available credit. If you max out your credit cards and pay the minimum payment leaving your available credit almost exhausted you will hurt your score too.

I agree with the 5-6 year figure to be able to get a 999, however you can improve your score in a couple of months, it slowly works its way up!

I have no idea about medical factors - best write to experian. TBH it's only about £7 a month to subscribe to your credit report and given the amount of ID theft about (think there were around 77'000 cases in 2008) I'd certainly not want to go too long without checking mine!