How is this possible--discrepancy in scores?

[Anonymous]

I just pulled both my score and my wife's.  My score is 586 and hers is 704.  Our utilization is nearly identical, no new credit, age of credit is similar.  She has about 3K less in revolving debt.  I do have one collection account from 12?07 that has been paid and is due to delete this month.  Can a collection account cause this large of a difference?  The more I see how FICO works the more frustrated I get.  How can people with fresh BK's have higher scores when i have not missed a payment, ever?  I would think that a history of slow pays would be worse than high utilization, oh well.

[MidnightVoice]

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izoid wrote:

  I do have one collection account from 12?07 that has been paid and is due to delete this month. 

A 6 month old collection is a HUGE hit to your score.  Why is being deleted?

[Anonymous]

I too had a collection from 12/07 recently deleted...you can easily see a +45 point increase on all scores...I did...initially I think my scores dropped about 60 pts for the new collection...GOOD LUCK!!

[Anonymous]

The CA agreed to delete upon payment.  Cox Communications placed this account in collections on Dec 4th when we disconnected service on Oct. 28th, very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

That should help reconcile the difference, when that collection is removed.

[RobertEG]

Hey, Iz, if you pay the collection, that it is a legal admission of responsibility for their assertion of your proper indebtedness.  So my simple caution is, MAKE SURE that you get a WRITTEN STATEMENT from them before you pay it that, that upon your payment, they will notify the CRAs that it is to be DELETED, and NOT just entered as paid.  Paying a collection does not remove it from your CR as a collection derog, which is major,  Only deletion does that.  I think all my CAP letters makes my advice kinda clear?

[Anonymous]

Your advice is appreciated and heard.  The issue is, I owed the money regardless.  I understand that I need written quaranties to be certain that a CA will do as they promise but in my mind if I owe the money I need to pay it, written guarantee or not.  I just can't figure why Cox would turn this over to collections so soon, without sending a final bill!

[haulingthescoreup]

I'm sure that you've already tried this, but just in case, have you called Cox and offered to pay them, if they will pull the collection back? Since they sent it out so quickly, they could accurately say that the account was not due to go to collections, and therefore it was an error on their part, and that they were withdrawing the collection.

If you pay Cox, instead of the CA, they will get a bunch more money, so they should be motivated to do this.

Again, get it in writing. And I commend you for wanting to pay your debts. I'm just unhappy that we seem to have to martyr ourselves in the process.