Understanding FICO® Scoring

[ukdebc]

I am looking for your opinion here:

I have an old closed account with BoA which has 3 x90 day 2 60 day and 4x30 day lates on it from 02,03 and 04.

The account was opened in 1990 - and is one of my older accounts.  What I am trying to judge is what would hurt me most - the baddies - or the loss of 10 months AAoA.

My oldest account is 22 years 4 months  and with the BoA account the AAoA = 11 years 7 months

 if BoA deletes the account based upon the GW's I have sent then the AAoA = 10 years 9 months.

So what hurts most - the lates  or the loss of AAoA by 10 months?

TIA

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, we don't know where the break points are for age, and it's been speculated that 11 years is one of them, so you might be finding out for us.

Why do you think that GW'ing lates would cause them to delete the whole TL? --it does happen, of course; I just don't remember reading about BofA doing so.


eta: Do you have any other serious derogs? --60 days less than 2 years old, 90's or 120's of any age, CO's, CA's, or any public records? --judgments, BK, etc. If the 90's on this account are your only serious derog, then if they go away, with or without the tradeline, you'll wind up in a positive history bucket. Right now you're in the serious derog bucket. Getting into a clean bucket would definitely benefit you in the long run, although some people have an initial drop in scores if they have high util, etc.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 04-09-2009 03:12 PM

[ukdebc]

Thanks for the reply.

the account is closed and the lates are scattered - so I figured that it would be easier for BoA to pull the whole account than to edit the lates -this was my worst case situation.

If these lates are deleted from this BoA account then there is nothing else on my CRA, no judgements, Collections, there are about 4 x 30 day lates on other accounts all of which are almost 7 years old and will drop off  in the next three months.  My CL total is around 75k and usage around 10 k - around 16% utilization - and working on bringing that down.

So this BoA account is, I think, keeping me in one bucket - and if the lates are removed or the account pulled - then I should get rebucketed..... whether this is a good or a bad thing remains to be seen.

Currently my scores are around 710 - I would dearly love to beable to get to 720 by June/July when we may be looking for a mortgage.

As an aside question - we are looking to replace an old beater car with a slightly less of a beater car. I do not feel (based on job security) that I want to buy a new car for $25k despite the "deals" out there.  My fico has had the following comment as a negative "no installment loans"  both my cars are long since paid off.   

Here is the questions - I could buy the car with cash from savings or I could get a loan from a local credit union (likely at 5.5%) for the 4k for the car.  What sort of impact would a new installment loan have on the score - if  there is a potential mortgage in the future ?  Given the current credit climate  I am not  sure  I want to buy with cash - in case I need the cash for later but if the impact on my score is negative I might .......

TIA

Message Edited by ukdebc on 04-11-2009 07:53 AM