Overcoming flaws in credit scoring

[Ed O.]

We're hoping to get some bank financing in the next 2-6 months. I'm trying to crank up our scores as much as possible and am wondering if anyone has any tricks for overcoming the piece of junk scoring models used by the 3 bureaus. I'm bitter, as despite the 15-1700 on time payments on our credit reports, with 0 lates, we're still regarded as risky to lend money to.

One thing I noticed with the credit monitoring service I use is that balances are reported usually on or just after a statement is issued. By paying down any credit line balances a few days before the statement runs, it should help to increase the score by showing lower utilization.

I'd like to think I have a good understanding of the fundamentals of credit scoring, but was wondering if anyone else had any tips like the one I mentioned above.

thanks in advance.