First off, thanks for you guys. This forum has helped me tremendously. I have been lurking for 6 months or better and have learned so much.
My question is regarding how child support affects your actual FICO score. Equifax in particular. Bare with me, I’m not the most articulate. I’m subscribed to my FICO 3b fwiw.
2 1/2 years ago I was on furlough. Long story short, I got behind roughly 2k in CS. Ffwd a few months I’m back working full time and start making my payments. Then back to automatic payroll deduction. Then $100 extra a month for arrears. Takes close to 2 years to get back to even. (I didn’t realize the impact it had on my credit at the time , I did not monitor it at all or I would have paid the arrears back much faster) However, every payment I made ..which was every month, since falling behind, was counted as a 90-120 day late because of the arrears. Seems unfair, but I understand. 4 months ago I became current and up to date shortly after becoming invested in my credit.
Experian and Equifax do acknowledge this account as a trade line. It does not affect my Experian score (740). It does affect my Equifax score (680). I do not have any other negative or derogatory marks on my report other than the late CS payments. I’ve read that FICO doesn’t count child support against you score wise. Late or not. I called MYFico and asked a nice lady about it. She claims it should be reported as a public record not a trade line. I called Equifax and they claim everyone’s child support is in fact a trade line. And they said it is in fact dropping my score.
I just don’t understand why It doesn’t affect me on Experian, but does Equifax. They report the same info to both bureaus. It does not report to Transunion and my score there is (727).
Also, my child support payments are court ordered, so wouldn’t that be considered a judgment and in fact make it a public record? Doesn’t FICO claim ANY child support obligations are not supposed to affect your score? I understand that there’s more to lending than my score. But it just bugs the crap out of me.
I wish someone knew the truth because I’ve read a lot of contradicting statements regarding the matter. Any insight appreciated.
