Almost a 100 point drop!?

[Anonymous]

Ok, so about a month ago I applied for and got pre-approved for a mortgage loan.  My TU score was 726, and EQ was 708.  Just prior to applying, I paid off in full a 3 year old judgement, and it actually boosted my score a bit.  Well, Im currently in the post inspection process of buying a home and negotiating repairs right now.  I decided to check my score today because I was curious how much the credit inquiry from applying for the loan affected my score.  I first bought my EQ score, it dropped from 708 to 698.  Ok, not bad I thought.  But I also noticed that it now shows I have a recent late payment just 3 months ago, from the judgment account (old car loan) that I paid off.  So I decide to check my TU score and see where it is.  WOW! What a shock.  It dropped from 726 to 647!  It also shows that old account as a recent late payment, but 2 months ago instead of 3.  Yet when you look at the details of the account it doesnt even mention any late payments like the EQ score does, but it dropped the score way more.  Also, on the page that shows the pros and cons affecting your score on a scale, it now has "high balance amount" as a negative.  The only debt I have is $10,000 left on a car loan that has been going down for the past 4 years.  I have not taken out any other debt, it has just kept going down, but now TU says my balance is too high...  It doesn't make any sense, and now I'm really worried this could hurt my chances of final approval or at the very least raise my interest rate.  Can I dispute the "late payments" with the credit agencies?

[Anonymous]

Well right off the back from what I can see you really can't compare those scores to each other?  They aren't the same scoreing system!  I also think that when you pay off an old judgement it get's hit for a ding at first because it sort of rekindles so to speak the judgement.  That's really all the advice I have on the situation I'm not really savvy enough to go into too much more detail.  Keep your head up though!  Just read around a little more too!

[Anonymous]

It makes no sense to me.  Once you miss payments on an account for 90-120 days, you come deliquent and your credit score drops.  Soon the account is charged off and you are sent to collection and/or have a judgement against you.  Your score drops again.  While in judgement your wages are garnsished, and eventually the account is paid through garnishment, or you pay off the account in full like I did.  During that time your score is going up, up, up.  So you are recovering your credit from a past deliquency and decide you are in a position to pay it off.  Then you are punished again for the same account and your score tanks again, because you made a "late payment".  So your score gets hit more than once for what is really one deliquency.  My EQ report now shows the account has been 120 days late 31 times, didn't show this before I paid it off...

I'm scared about letting my lender know.  If this hurts my final loan approval, then I will most likely lose my earnest money too.

[bettercreditguy1]

It depends on your lender, but more so your Lending officer. He iw your best ally. If this is your one and only negative, you probably do not have too much to worry about.

[Anonymous]

It still doesn't seem right to me.  I decide to pay off a three year old account with a judgement, in full, and now they decide to report it as having a recent missed payment.  Why weren't they reporting late payments for the past 3 years?  Now it looks like I am recently 90 days late, on a zero balance account...  The oddest thing is that EQ actually shows 90+ days late 31 times on the account details.  TU doesn't even show a late payment on the account, but still says I have a recent late payment, and it dropped 80 points compared to EQ dropping 8 points.  And go figure my experian Plus score jumped over 50 points and is now sitting at 728.  This whole system needs more transparency.

[AshCas]

Dont freak just yet.  Remember that the TU score on this site is TU98, and most lenders are pulling TU04. From what I've read there can be a big difference in the score...

Even though your score may have dropped, any manual review is going to show that it's not a new derogotory, just an updated one. 

[tooleman694]

Yeah my TU98 score always trails my TU04 by a lot of points.