TWO baddies off, but util went up and I took a HUGE SCORE DROP!

[lafishy]

hi there.

for some mysterious reason, my one baddie that i actually deserved (a B of A chargeoff from 2005, originally an MBNA card), just disappeared from my TU and EQ reports last week.

also, a medical baddie just disappeared a year ahead of sked too.

but, i bet my util, which went way up to like 50% (not hard to do when you have on mastercard with an $800 limit and one macy's with a $400 limit that is virtually untouched), had a lot to do with how my score

WENT FROM 736 to 689/691!!!!!!!!!!

WTF?

could I have been rebucketed now that i have fewer baddies? currently all i really have on tap are 3 public records on TU, and 5 public records on EQ...i have one inaccurate report of a civil judgment that's paid, but reporting unpaid, and one lien to the feds that is unpaid, and won't be paid off until january. the rest are paid state liens.

no other baddies. the only "flagged" parts are the liens.

every other criteria is either "good" or "very good" (payment history).

average account age has not changed.  only util, and disappearance of baddies.

HELP!! feeling super discouraged.

[RadioRob]

There could be a couple of reasons....

a) As you suggested, you might have been rebucketed.

b) The CO was helping your Util.

c) The CO was helping your AAoA.

The good thing is that with them gone, you have potential to most likely go higher than you could before.   

Good luck!

[lafishy]

Hi RR

 Thanks for your reply. Is that true, that a line of credit long written off is considered part of your overall available credit? 

AAoA didn't change, it looks like. But on closer examination, an old car loan that I paid off 10 years ago, a PERFECT account, has dropped off. Sucks. I have fewer negative TLs, but also fewer positive ones, and also I guess a less diversified bench of TLs at this point. 

I guess that explains things even more. And I also think I'm antsy because other than hiring a NACA lawyer to help me petition to have those liens removed, there just isn't much more "repair" I can do. Which I guess is a bit unnerving, because I'm nearing a point where the only thing that will help is time. More and more time.

Thanks.

[llecs]

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lafishy wrote:

 Thanks for your reply. Is that true, that a line of credit long written off is considered part of your overall available credit? 

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All OC accounts, open or closed, good or bad, are factored into AAoA.

[lafishy]

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i knew aa of a factored in all accounts, open closed good or bad, but my question is this:

for the purposes of determining ratio of available credit to used credit, are closed lines used as well?

i thought only open revolvers were counted for that. thoughts?

[Anonymous]

One was to find out is to do the math yourself. When getting your reports from EQ it will give you the percentage utilization. So, add up your balances multiply by 100 and divide by all of your credit card limits. Compare it to the percent that EQ is showing, if it is off then try adding the other items. I had the same question and that is how I found out that my closed accounts were not being used in the calculation. Whether they are supposed to, thats a different story. 

Example:

CC1 300used/CL500   CC2 200used/500CL      total balance is 500     total CL is 1,000= 50% Utilization

I'm sure you knew this but this is really the only way to find out what they are using to calc utilization.

Hope I didnt confuse you.....

[Izaana]

what is UTIL? it's not in abbreviations

[Anonymous]

If you have Public Records you probably were not re-bucketed with your COs falling off. COs and PRs are considered a serious derog, so your bucket is most likely the same.

[JoeBJay20]

It sounds like utilization is the culprit here, especially if you went to 50% from say, 5%. 

[Izaana]

what does rebucketed mean?