Auto loan denial from my credit union

[renov8r]

I am in a debt management program on my revolving debt.  I have completed 1 year.  I have a need to obtain a $14k loan for a car.  I have 5 accounts with one or two 30 day late payments and 1 account that went 60 days twice.  Almost all of these lates were while I was in the DMP by creditors that accepted the program.  The accounts were not 30 days late when I entered the program and I made my all payments to the DMP on time, but there was a lag getting the payments credited properly.  Everything is current now, but I guess I should have been making double payments until I confirmed that the DMP payments were being credited correctly.  Live and learn...

I applied to San Diego County Credit Union and was denied.  They use Experian.  My Experian FICO is 641.  FICO says I should be able to qualify for a 11.711% loan with a score between 620-659.  My experience with the credit union seems to illustrate that the FICO score was irrelevant since I had "negative indicators".  Does a FICO score have any real value?  

[pritchardhallhokie]

FICO has plenty of value.  However, I'm afraid you're probably not pulling a FICO score.  More than likely, you're pulling a FAKO score (a score generated from a credit monitoring website other than myfico).  I think the number you had been thinking was a FICO wasn't your FICO at all.

[MarineVietVet]

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@renov8r wrote:

I am in a debt management program on my revolving debt.  I have completed 1 year.  I have a need to obtain a $14k loan for a car.  I have 5 accounts with one or two 30 day late payments and 1 account that went 60 days twice.  Almost all of these lates were while I was in the DMP by creditors that accepted the program.  The accounts were not 30 days late when I entered the program and I made my all payments to the DMP on time, but there was a lag getting the payments credited properly.  Everything is current now, but I guess I should have been making double payments until I confirmed that the DMP payments were being credited correctly.  Live and learn...

I applied to San Diego County Credit Union and was denied.  They use Experian.  My Experian FICO is 641.  FICO says I should be able to qualify for a 11.711% loan with a score between 620-659.  My experience with the credit union seems to illustrate that the FICO score was irrelevant since I had "negative indicators".  Does a FICO score have any real value?  

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Did the CU tell you your EX FICO is 641 or did you get this EX score from the EX website or some type of 3 in 1 monitoring service?

No one has been able to buy their own Experian FICO score since February of 2009. Creditors can pull Experian and also there is a CU (PSECU) in Pennsylvania that supplies that information to it's members only.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[renov8r]

Thanks for the responses!  The credit union rep told me over the phone that the Experian FICO score was 641.  I don't know more than that, but my TU is 664 and my EQ is 646 via Score Watch, so it sounded legitimate.

He said that the negatives (4 ccds with a couple of 30 day lates, and 1 ccd with a couple of 60 day lates) were the reason for declining, regardless of the FICO.  The most recent was 11 months ago.  We set up the DMP 13 months ago, and all of the accounts are now showing paid as agreed.  My income has doubled since then and I have money for a down payment..

After playing with the FICO simulator, I have decided to pay an extra $1,300 to pay off the CCDs over the next 12 months.  This along with 12 more months between me and the negatives should get me near 700 if the simulator is correct. 

Any other suggestions?

[MarineVietVet]

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@renov8r wrote:

Thanks for the responses!  The credit union rep told me over the phone that the Experian FICO score was 641.  I don't know more than that, but my TU is 664 and my EQ is 646 via Score Watch, so it sounded legitimate.

He said that the negatives (4 ccds with a couple of 30 day lates, and 1 ccd with a couple of 60 day lates) were the reason for declining, regardless of the FICO.  The most recent was 11 months ago.  We set up the DMP 13 months ago, and all of the accounts are now showing paid as agreed.  My income has doubled since then and I have money for a down payment..

After playing with the FICO simulator, I have decided to pay an extra $1,300 to pay off the CCDs over the next 12 months.  This along with 12 more months between me and the negatives should get me near 700 if the simulator is correct. 

Any other suggestions?

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Lenders have access to all the FICO scores so it's good to know you have accurate data.

Recent lates are a real score killer. You can try and send GW (Good Will) letters to the creditors and ask nicely if they could delete those lates early. They don't have to of course but many people have succeeded with GW's. Single 30 day lates quickly lose their sting after several years but scoring also looks at the number of lates reporting so having up to eight 30 day lates is not a good thing. 60 day lates hurt for longer than several years and again if you have more than one reporting at the same time all that adds up to your denial.

I would pay off those credit cards as fast as possible. Do you know what your utilization (both overall and individual account) is at the moment? Revolving utilization is 30% of your total score and lowering balances which lowers your utilization is the fastest way to raise scores.

While at the same time working on getting those lates removed.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[marty56]

OT but I sucessully completed a DMP program a few years ago.  I had the same problem with my DMP company payments some times being later than the due date but the few times it happend, I was able to pay the affected CCC myself. 

You might want to contact the CCC to change the due date to give you some slack in case that DMP payment is late.

Be carefull on opeing new credit if you have a BofA account in DMP.  My only derog, an almost 6 year old 120 day late, was caused by me opening a $300 Samsclub card and BofA  quitely dumping my account from the DMP program and changing the monthly payment.