Collection Account Question FICO Scoring

Anonymous · ‎01-13-2009

Okay, I finally was able to pull a FICO score (since my credit has aged enough to allow me to). I have 4 bad things: Collections - Age of Accounts - Usage 30% - Recent Collection. I understand the first three reasons.

The one I do not understand is the "Recent Collection: You had a collection open 1 year and 1 month ago"

My collections were reported to the Credit Bureaus on Dec of 2007, but they are from accounts from 2005... in fact DOLA shows Sep 2005 and Oct 2005 on them. Does FICO use the date they were reported by the CA? I thought everyone used the DOLA/DOFD to determine the age of the collection... could someone help me with this one.

fused · ‎01-13-2009

Was this an EQ report/score?

Anonymous · ‎01-13-2009

Hi Fused, no it was my TU. I paid for the quarterly monitoring. I thought that was the best deal for right now.

I am just bummed that they are listing the date the collection was added to my report (12/2007) instead of the date I actually moved and forgot to pay my last electric bill.

fused · ‎01-13-2009

In FICO scoring, "recent" mean less than two years old. I think the FICO gods are treating this as a newer collection. The same thing can happen if a ruthless CA reports (updates) an old collection monthly.

Anonymous · ‎01-13-2009

Here is what it looks like. I took out the CA's name to protect my "secret identity" LOL

Collection agency [?] BLANK ON PURPOSE Original balance [?] $121 Current balance [?] $0 Status [?] Not Reported Date assigned [?] Mar 13, 2006 Date reported [?] Dec 01, 2008 Date last active [?] Not Reported Date paid [?] Jun 16, 2008 Date closed [?] Jun 16, 2008

Message Edited by Pappy214 on 01-13-2009 02:23 PM

fused · ‎01-13-2009

Yup, it looks like it's being treated like a new CA.

laz98 · ‎01-13-2009

@fused wrote:
In FICO scoring, "recent" mean less than two years old. I think the FICO gods are treating this as a newer collection. The same thing can happen if a ruthless CA reports (updates) an old collection monthly.

that's crap! it's artificially deflating your score! how is that fair?

fused · ‎01-13-2009

+1! I agree 100%!

RobertEG · ‎01-16-2009

The first thing I would ask is why, if the collection was reported to a CRA back in 2007, are you first hearing about it only from review of your CR? Did they ever dunn you?