Help Transunion score took a huge dive!

[Anonymous]

Last month (12/23/08) My Transunion score was 596 (I am working my way up!) and I got a score watch alert today for Equifax that my score went down 17 points, I checked and there is a new collection that I am disputing. So I decided to get my TU score to see if that collection ended up on my account and I was shocked to see that my score went down to 528! The lowest it has ever been! The collection WAS NOT on my TU report. The only changes that were there was an account that I had previously went from $171.00 to $33.00 and should actually be showing as $0 as I paid it off (old collection and I tried PFD and that did not work), My Discover card Balance is close to the limit (charges over Christmas) but I am paying down end of the month and a new account from March of 2007 for $207.00 from Verizon is on there which I disputed. Would these make my score take such a huge dive! And if I get the Discover paid down would that bring it back up? I also have a cc which I opened in May of 2008 and they recently transferred to another bank (new bank not on my report) but the cc shows in good standing balance $0 but closed and when the new transferred account pops up will it hurt my score? I am devastated as I won an affordable housing lottery here in MA to purchase a house under 40b and will not qualify for a mortgage unless my score is at least 580 so I am in kind of a race against time, could come up as early as May or as late as the fall, so I do have some time. Any and all help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Ps I also called Transunion directly to see why I had the score drop and they indicated that the 528 is not the score they are showing. Isnt the score on myfico supposed to be correct? Of course they would not tell me the score that they had over the phone.

[Anonymous]

There are 2 versions of the TU score, this site offers the less common one (it will change in the near future).

Your score likely worsened due to a card near maxed out and the new collection showing up on your report. A paid collection does not help your score like getting it removed from your report and now you have had a more recent collection appear, which to the FICO formula is like a new alarm being set off. You need to concentrate on  PFD for the new collection and paying down your card to get your score back up in time.

Goodluck!

[haulingthescoreup]

Wow, sorry to hear this!

It's possible that it's a FICO TU score created from TU 04, a newer version of their FICO scoring formula. myFICO still uses TU 98, although they are trying to get the new version in here, as I understand, now that half the nation's lenders have changed to the newer version.

The score that TransUnion is looking at might not be your TU FICO score at all, but their TransRisk score. Alternatively, it might be a house version created by all three CRA's called a Vantage score.

What you have to do is print out the score report from your earlier higher score and this newer lower score. (And you got both of them here, correct?) Go through each with a yellow high-lighter, matching up each account line by line, paying particular attention to dates, balances, and any descriptive terminology.


eta: whoops, outtyped by debtisgood!

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 01-20-2009 03:03 PM

[CreditAble]

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haulingthescoreup wrote: 
myFICO still uses TU 98, although they are trying to get the new version in here, as I understand, now that half the nation's lenders have changed to the newer version.

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Is there any chance that the change might have already taken place. My TU score jumped unexplainably a couple of months ago. It is now within 3-8 points of EQ and EX.

[haulingthescoreup]

A few of us saw the same thing, but when we asked, we were told that it still hasn't happened.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! This is all so confusing and dissapointing, it has taken months to get my score up, I started at 478 and managed to get it to 596 and feel like I am starting over again! Would I be better off going to the TU sight and paying to get their score? Which one is the one that lenders view? Also, if I have a new collection, and they will not PFD (as it is Verizon and I have had no luck with them) should I pay it anyway?

[CreditAble]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
A few of us saw the same thing, but when we asked, we were told that it still hasn't happened.

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Thanks for the response.

I guess it doesn't matter much why it went up.

After all it did go up.