When is a collection no longer "recent"?

[Anonymous]

I was surprised to notice when I got my latest Experian report that it says I have a recent collection. It's actually 1 year 10 months old, it says, although the DoFD is older than that. I'm not going to challenge it, but I tried to Google for when a collection is not longer "recent" and had trouble. It's not the most SEO friendly thing to look up, I guess.

So... I think it's 2 years? Is that when it stops having as big of an impact? And have people seen their scores go up when they hit that mark? For me, it would be in two months if I'm right. 

I might have to pay it anyway, though. It's a utility collection, and in that case, it's small enough that if I need to go apartment hunting for my next job, I had better pay it up. Landlords don't like to see unpaid utilities... wish I'd thought of that a year ago, when I first started rebuilding my scores for this kind of thing. I know this doesn't re-age when the debt falls off, but does it make the collection "recent" again?

Thanks in advance for anyone who has answers to these somewhat tricky questions. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was surprised to notice when I got my latest Experian report that it says I have a recent collection. It's actually 1 year 10 months old, it says, although the DoFD is older than that. I'm not going to challenge it, but I tried to Google for when a collection is not longer "recent" and had trouble. It's not the most SEO friendly thing to look up, I guess.

So... I think it's 2 years? Is that when it stops having as big of an impact? And have people seen their scores go up when they hit that mark? For me, it would be in two months if I'm right. 

I might have to pay it anyway, though. It's a utility collection, and in that case, it's small enough that if I need to go apartment hunting for my next job, I had better pay it up. Landlords don't like to see unpaid utilities... wish I'd thought of that a year ago, when I first started rebuilding my scores for this kind of thing. I know this doesn't re-age when the debt falls off, but does it make the collection "recent" again?

Thanks in advance for anyone who has answers to these somewhat tricky questions. 

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Some people say it does, I personally have my doubts. I may pay off one of my old ones just to see....

[RobertEG]

It is a major derog, and will keep you in a less favorable scoring category (bucket).

An additional factor is whether the debt collector is reportng regular updates, showing the collection is still open and active.

[Anonymous]

The collection agency doesn't update. On one report, the original creditor updated it a lot, but the collection account never got reported. I'm not touching that with a 10 foot pole, though.

Of course I know it is a major derog. No way, really? But that doesn't answer the question I had. 

Im asking, when it hits the 2 year mark soon, will it affect on my scores be lessened? I already know the basics about collections, but this info I thought I saw once before is eluding me.

[Anonymous]

I also had the same question. I only have one more collection reporting, and it still says recent in the factors section at 1 yr 5 months old. My best guess is that it will always report that way for the time it's on your report since the factors section always go for any derogs first, but I think the actual score impact will lessen over time.

[Anonymous]

Also, I think the scoring impact will decrease more quickly as long as it's not updating. Mine had stopped updating as of April of last year, when I paid it off in November I got a small drop because it updated

[RobertEG]

The significance is that minor derogs cease to have substantial scoring impact after 2'ish years, while major derogs continue to have scoring impact throughout their lifeftime on your report.