Equifax doesn't tally payment history?

[Anonymous]

My scores are TU 689, EX 681, EQ 637. 

I'm trying to figure out why I've got that 44-52 point gap. 

The account differences I can find are: 

Equifax doesn't appear to include the little "OK" symbol to show that a monthly payment was made for any account - being on time is my account strength. 

EQ shows 5 inquiries where the others show 2 or 3 (the extras are the phone company and apartment checking - I've challenged these as they should be soft pulls).

EX and TU show one additional account that is a little older than my AAOA. Its a card I reported lost - on TU, it appears to be an active card (not used in 2 years, but alive with a zero balance and adding $4,000 to my utilization denominator), on EX, its listed as lost or stolen.

Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Particularly, any thoughts on how I could best up the scores? I'm trying to buy a house in the next few months, and I'm trying to figure out how much to save for the DP and how much to use on my credit score. The most likely lender uses the middle score. 

My utilization is at 71% (60 something on Transunion). 18K in revolving credit, 5 CCs, 3 with balances. I just paid off like $7,000, so that'll be closer to 11K and 2 CCs with balances when they report. Those two are decently high though - probably around 75%. I know for sure one of those cards will consider a CLI without a hard pull on my credit score. After the next payment posts with them I'll be at 75% utilization - that might still scare them if I ask for an increase, so I might wait another month and pay them down a bit further.

Before I plan on applying, I should have one revolving account age to a year, and two age to six months. All of my Experian Inquiries should be over a year except for the phone company, which I challenged. The other two bureaus will each lose 1 of their 2/3 inquiries.

Message Edited by JESMONT on 02-14-2009 06:38 AM

[cobaltnv]

It sounds like you are making good progress on your cc debt--congrats. The inquiries are not what is hurting your score it is your utilization.The FICO algorithm takes into account both total utilization and individual card utilization.  In order to answer your question(s) we need a bit more information. Could you list the limits and balances of your 5 credit cards and the total $$ value you think you have each month to save for a DP and pay off CC? That would help a great deal.

  I assume you will be going the FHA or USDA roue for your loan. Based on your scores and the assumption that with your CC debt you do not have a 10 or 20% downpayment. For FHA I believe a 680 get you the best rates (you will need 3.5% down).

 Good Luck.

[haulingthescoreup]

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JESMONT wrote:

My scores are TU 689, EX 681, EQ 637. 

I'm trying to figure out why I've got that 44-52 point gap. 

The account differences I can find are: 

Equifax doesn't appear to include the little "OK" symbol to show that a monthly payment was made for any account - being on time is my account strength.

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Where are you expecting to see little OK symbols? I see those on FAKO reports like TrueCredit and CreditSecure that give the chart about your payment patterns over the last however many years, but you don't get that on FICO score reports, or at least, not where I can find them.

On FICO score reports, on the accounts page, you should see a series of "Pays account as agreed."

On score monitoring services like TrueCredit, you don't see those OK's or green boxes for EQ. That's just a display peculiarity. Click wherever you can get more info on the account, or click the printable report option, and as long as it shows this month or last month (or whatever) as your most recent payment, then you're getting credit for timely payments.

If you're looking at a TC or CS, etc. report, and your scores can from there, they're FAKO's. They don't mean anything, including the point spread.

My TC FAKO's are 732 - 726 - 673. (These are TransUnion's TransRisk FAKO's.)

My CS FAKO's are 720 - 734 - 720. (These are Experian's PLUS FAKO's, through CreditSecure from American Express.)

They're all meaningless. That's why everyone is so angry about EX no longer letting us check our EX FICO's.

[Anonymous]

I am not sure why EQ is so different from the other CBs.  What I will tell you though...do not close the account, your score will be lowered about 20+ points.  My situation is similar to yours and I am disputing these issues.

[Anonymous]

Haulingthescoreup - These are FICOs pulled through MyFico. For Experian and Transunion reports, if I go to "Accounts" and click "details" on any account, it includes a bar with a box for every month in the past two years. If the payment was on time, there's an "ok" in the box. That segment of the graphic doesn't exist for Equifax, so I'm wondering if its some quirky rule about data they don't let Fair Isaac produce (like how Experian won't let you see what's helping your score)- or if they're not collecting the data for some reason. 

Cobalt- I know the utilization is the big pain. I was more trying to figure out if it was the cause of that 40 point drop on Experian, my utilization is similar on all my reports.

As far as more information:  

Ideally, we'd like me to get into the 720 range, as one of the local builders has extremely good rates if I can do that - our down payment requirements are lower, they pay a point on top of market interest for our credit score, and give us a couple thousand in free options. 

The tricky issue is we'd like to lock in the low loan rates by summer. If we buy retail, that means we've got to move in by summer - if we build new, we'll need the credit score by then, but have through November to expand the down payment. (If not for the low rates - my original plan was to charge our preemptive honeymoon, pay it off, build a downpayment, then buy, but I didn't expect 4.5% interest or an $8,000 credit that expires Dec 1).

I have about $2000 saved, my fiancee has about $2500 (obv., that's going to the down payment). We can save / pay down debt by about $2000 a month. Hopefully more, but that's to be a little conservative. (I'm also assuming we get no wedding money, to be conservative). We're mostly looking at houses in the $225,000 range, though we'd like the flexibility to buy a more expensive house if we like it. That means we'd like to at least have 10,000+ in cash for down payment and closing costs. 

TU: 689

EX: 681

EQ: 637

Visa (6 months old): $5313 / $6000

Value City Furniture: (6 months old): $0 / $3000

AMEX: (5 years old): $0/1400

BoA (3 years old): $6214/7200

Cap1 (9 months old): 6629/7500

That's what's on my credit score now. I've just paid off the Visa (I think there's like $20 on it), and put $750 down on Cap1 and 500 on Bank of America. To the extent it matters, I also have about $6500 outstanding on my car loan and about $110,000 in law school loans.

I'm really confused about Equifax - I lost like 30 points when my Cap1 balance creeped up by $250, but I had far more debt (and that VCF card was at $2500) when my score was in the 690s.

Thanks you guys!

Message Edited by JESMONT on 02-14-2009 08:41 AM

[cobaltnv]

Thanks for the clarification Jesmont. Your EQ score probably dropped with cap1 balance increasing by only $250 because you crossed the 85% utilization threshold.  If I remember correctly above 85% and your cc is considered maxed out (someone will correct me if I have that wrong).

Since you will have until November to build up a downpayment my suggestion would for the next couple of months to use the $2k to pay down both credit cards. If you can get below 50% (or better) your scores will go up significantly. I would also only let those two cards with balances report. That is pay off any other card you use before the statement cuts.

You will also likely se a small bump in score when cap1 turns 1yr old.

Congrats on your upcoming wedding. 

[haulingthescoreup]

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JESMONT wrote:

Haulingthescoreup - These are FICOs pulled through MyFico. For Experian and Transunion reports, if I go to "Accounts" and click "details" on any account, it includes a bar with a box for every month in the past two years. If the payment was on time, there's an "ok" in the box. That segment of the graphic doesn't exist for Equifax, so I'm wondering if its some quirky rule about data they don't let Fair Isaac produce (like how Experian won't let you see what's helping your score)- or if they're not collecting the data for some reason. 

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Oh, of course, I'm sorry, I forgot about the display function when you hit the details button. My bad! (My morning has been kinda strange. )

Equifax history displays funky on everyone's monitoring services. My guess is that it's because they only record payments by MM/YYYY, not by MM/DD/YYYY, as the other two do. That's just a guess, though. All I know is that it displays oddly, but your scores are crunched off of the full reports maintained by the bureaus, so you're getting credited for your good payment history.

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TU: 689
EX: 681
EQ: 637

Visa (6 months old): $5313 / $6000

Value City Furniture: (6 months old): $0 / $3000

AMEX: (5 years old): $0/1400

BoA (3 years old): $6214/7200

Cap1 (9 months old): 6629/7500

That's what's on my credit score now. I've just paid off the Visa (I think there's like $20 on it), and put $750 down on Cap1 and 500 on Bank of America. To the extent it matters, I also have about $6500 outstanding on my car loan and about $110,000 in law school loans.

I'm really confused about Equifax - I lost like 30 points when my Cap1 balance creeped up by $250, but I had far more debt (and that VCF card was at $2500) when my score was in the 690s.

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Your best bang for your buck will come from paying all your cards off, except for leaving $10 to report on one card. You can get some huge points swings for lowering revolving util. Don't worry about the auto loans and SL's. Although installment util is considered, it's handled separately from revolving util, and it has very little impact, until there's nothing else to work on with your reports.

When your EQ EX dropped, what changes were there on screen two (the positives and negatives) between the two reports? These aren't always terribly enlightening, but sometimes they can give you an idea.

Also, did your overall history or AAoA move up a year between the times of the two reports? You might have moved up into an older-age score bucket.


eta: really, I have got to get some more coffee in me.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 02-14-2009 09:09 AM

[Anonymous]

Cobalt - Brilliant. Just brilliant. Apparently FICO rounds down.

I was at like 85.8% before. This moved me to 88%. 

On Hauling's line of questions - I don't have a prior report - just a prior scorewatch score and the alert of that balance increase. But EQ does have two comments about how my balances are too high, whereas EX and TU only have one.

[Anonymous]

As an aside, my EQ just jumped 11 points a minute ago . . . no alert along with it, and I don't feel like paying to pull my report quite yet. If it jumps again I will.

Could well be Cap1 reporting my paydown . . .