Credit Scoring 101 - START HERE!

[Pilotdude]

Great post!!!   Thank you!!!  

A definite must read!!!

[Anonymous]

Well put but you missed the problem with auto shopping. Most car dealers pull a TU score. TU has no Purpose Code for an auto purchase. They use LBP or legitimate business purpose. Experian and Equifax have a purpose code to identify that your credit is being pulled for the purchase of an auto. I have a bet for everyone here. Go to your local bank and auto dealer. Ask them if a purpose code matters. Ask 10 people that pull credit and they will have no clue whatsoever what a purpose code is nor can they tell you what one is. Daily I here that purpose codes don't matter. Look at your credit report in the inquiry section and TU will almost always say LBP. I am in Central Illinois and work for one of the last full service credit bureaus in the nation. We resell all three bureaus and I train bankers, landlords and consumers on what is listed here. I am also a FICO Certified Pro through AllRegs.

[Sephiroth]

This might be in Credit Scoring 600, but I have a question about account histories. To give a some context to my question, I've had a student loan in deferment since 2006, and it is still in deferment. Because it is in deferment and payments are not being made to the account, does the time it is in deferment count towards the account history?

Thanks for you help.

[llecs]

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@Sephiroth wrote:

This might be in Credit Scoring 600, but I have a question about account histories. To give a some context to my question, I've had a student loan in deferment since 2006, and it is still in deferment. Because it is in deferment and payments are not being made to the account, does the time it is in deferment count towards the account history?

Thanks for you help.

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FICO looks at various aspects within a given account on your CR like the status, comments, balance, CL, pmt history, acct type, age, status dates, etc. When figuring the length of history, FICO zeros only on the open date. So it doesn't matter if opened, closed, in deferrment, charged-off, paid off, current, whatever, the age will remain unchanged. The age is calculated from the reported opened date through today (or whatever day the report is pulled).

[creditimproved40points]

Greetings, and though I am quite new to the whole credit thing, I would like to add some things.  I am restoring my credit.  I first started by getting a free copy of my credit reports from all three bureaus through 1-877-FAC-TACT.  This is a federally mandated program for those worried about their scores.  They are free for the first time, and once per year thereafter.  Any more throughout the year must be paid for.  Afterwards, I poured through my reports and disputed everything down to even disputing misspelled names from my credit report (this could be considered identity theft if you yourself did not initiate the account).  I then started to pay down all my past charged off accounts that have been reporting every month.  The old accounts that have not been reporting...just leave them alone.  Then I got one loan for 440. and one secured card for 200.   Now I just have to wait for those to start affecting my credit score.  I went from a fico score in Mar 01 of 541 to a score today of 589.

[Football34]

When paying off collections to I ask for PDF(pay for delete)? I want to get collections off my report. What is the tradeline info. Please Help Me.. Thank u.

[moatengator]

Thanks for all the great info. I have been trying to rebuild my credit & this has been a great help. I wish I found this sooner!!!  Thanks for all your work!!!

[wpxo]

This was a very helpful post! I wish I had read it sooner or took note of the "start here" suggestion. Thank you!

[BrookBoy]

Terrific post and invaluable information. Thanks for taking the time to educate so many of us.

I have a particular question that I'm not sure belongs here, but I don't know where else to post it. Here it is:

I paid to check my credit scores and get my credit reports on Fair Isaacs on September 24th. Here are the results:

Experian: 802

Equifax: 762

TransUnion: 771

All fine and good. But I decided to check my scores again in November, as I am thinking about getting a new Visa card. This time I used a place called ScoreSense, which is one of those places that advertises free scores but then automatically enrolls you in a subscription (which I canceled earlier today). Anyway, here are the results (as of 11/12/2013):

Experian: 728

Equifax: 806

TransUnion: 763

It appears that my Experian score was lowered by 74 points, while my Equifax score was increased by 44 points. These scores were taken approximately six weeks apart, and I did not take any action during that time that should have affected my credit scores.

So my question is, why the discrepancy in the scores in such a short time, and how do I find out how this occurred?

Thanks again for being here. This is a tough topic that is not very user-friendly.

Kind regards,

BrookBoy