<prompt> Human: Background: Im a 24 years old, a college graduate, working full-time Salaried, 35Kyr, with no major debt other than student loans which are under 20K.I was going through my credit reports and score after the Equifax breach and the result I got from creditscorecard.com was a 591 FICO score. Which is sub-optimal. For the record, this was the first time Id ever actually looked at it. The breakdown they gave me was:Credit Mix - Fair: 2 Total accounts Both student loansLength of Credit - Good: 6 years 2 months of historyRecent Inquires- Exceptional: 0 credit inquiries in the last 12 monthsAmount of Debt- Fair: Revolving Utilization - No valid revolving accounts that appear on my Experian credit filePayment History - Fair: 1 missed payment in the past year, 0 accounts reported late over the past 7 yearsWhats Hurting - Serious delinquency You have a serious delinquency 60 days past due or greater or derogatory indicator on your credit report.Like I said, the only debts I have are for student loans. Im up to date on both of those and combined they are 17K worth of debt, the smaller of the two is only for 450. My car was a gift from an aunt, so there were never any payments on that. Phone payments are also up to date. Im not 100 sure what that missed payment is for; I had forgotten about the smaller of my two student loans after graduation, and thus didnt make a payment when it came due, which came up on a background check for a previous job. But that is payed off and up to date now. The other likely culprit is a phone payment that I put off, but that is likewise up to date at this point. I would assume that whichever it is accounts for the Serious Delinquency on the report. But Im just not sure.From what I can make of this my problem is that I dont really have much of a credit history, no cards or loans, and as a result the few negatives or non-positives are dragging me down more than they otherwise would. Feel free to correct me if Im wrong about that.Beyond that Im stable financially. I had a decent paying job out of college and was able to save up, then I was working a minimum-wage retail job for a while and had to eat into that savings. So while my bank account is in the black I dont have too much of a financial cushion. I recently started a new job and am looking forward to actually being able to save money again.Final note: Because of the Equifax breach I put a freeze on my Equifax credit report and locked my TransUnion one Not frozen, just locked. Experians website wasnt cooperating, so I havent frozen that one yet. My credit reports from all of them looked fine to me, though I wasnt able to access my Equifax credit report online shocking.Questions:1 How do I raise my score2 Is there some way to pin down exactly what that missed paymentserious delinquency is?3 Should I freeze my TransUnion credit report as opposed to just locking it4 Should I freeze all of themkeep them frozen?5 Any more general advice?Thanks!  <response>: Im not 100 sure what that missed payment is for; I had forgotten about the smaller of my two student loans after graduation, and thus didnt make a payment when it came due, which came up on a background check for a previous job. But that is payed off and up to date now. The other likely culprit is a phone payment that I put off, but that is likewise up to date at this point. If you use a site like CreditKarma, or pull one of your reports from annualcreditreport.com both free, you should be able to find out what the derogatory mark is for. Even if the accounts are now current and in good standing, the derogatory mark will still stay on your report for seven years. It may impact your score for less time than that if it is an isolated late payment general belief is impact of up to three years if its isolated. Once you find out what it is from, you could contact the creditor and ask for it to be removed. But theres no guarantee they will. From what I can make of this my problem is that I dont really have much of a credit history, no cards or loans, and as a result the few negatives or non-positives are dragging me down more than they otherwise would.This is generally correct. You have very little credit history. You also only have installment credit things you pay back in level amounts each month, usually loans, and no revolving credit things you pay back based on how much of your credit you use, usually credit cards on your credit report. As such, the credit bureaus dont yet know if you are a responsible user of credit or not. 1 How do I raise my scorePay all of your loans on time, and look into getting a credit card that will allow you to start building positive credit history. Any will do as long as you are paying it off by the statement due date each month. With a score of 591 and limited credit history youre probably only eligible for a secure credit card, wherein you put down a deposit and get a credit card with a limit up to the deposit amount. If you use the card responsibly, that deposit is eventually refunded back to you and the card becomes a normal credit card. But that is still a start. You are young and have plenty of time to build credit the right way. 