Negative reporting and credit history

[Anonymous]

For starters my credit was in shambles; still is technically. I carry some old debts. Anyway, I needed to obtain my score but I had no new history. I look and see a 629 and was shocked. I know time healed some of the issues as well as a few PFDs. 

Here's my problem, Fico is reporting my credit age to an old negative account. I wanted to do a PFD with Midland and LVNV and GW with Sears (although, I'm sure they'll decline). If I get rid of those accounts, is my score going to drop because my credit age will decrease significantly? More than it's worth?

[Travis-84]

Maybe it will, maybe it wont. 

How old is the negative account (from when you opened it), and how long ago did you default?

How old is the oldest good account?

Removing negative information will probably cause your score to go up, unless the bad info is really old, or the account is years and years older than anything else you have.

[Anonymous]

I also see that it says only 1 account has a negative indicator so I'm unsure how they're scoring this. There are three other negative accounts. It looks like I would have to keep this one on here especially given that it reports a $0 balance. I believe it was charged off in January of 2006.

Status Sep, 2010

Date Opened Feb, 2001

DOLA Aug, 2006

Date Closed Not Reported

Not Reported

Not Reported

$750

Not Reported

Revolving

Individual

$0

Descriptions [?]

• Account transferred or sold
• Charged off account

No contact information provided by Equifax

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

For starters my credit was in shambles; still is technically. I carry some old debts. Anyway, I needed to obtain my score but I had no new history. I look and see a 629 and was shocked. I know time healed some of the issues as well as a few PFDs. 

Here's my problem, Fico is reporting my credit age to an old negative account. I wanted to do a PFD with Midland and LVNV and GW with Sears (although, I'm sure they'll decline). If I get rid of those accounts, is my score going to drop because my credit age will decrease significantly? More than it's worth?

---

Don't worry about Midland and LVNV. Those are CAs and CAs aren't factored into your length of history or AAoA per your FICO score. You want those two off. Sears is factored in though. If it is your oldest or really helps boost your AAoA, then you'd want to proceed carefully.

[llecs]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I also see that it says only 1 account has a negative indicator so I'm unsure how they're scoring this. There are three other negative accounts. It looks like I would have to keep this one on here especially given that it reports a $0 balance. I believe it was charged off in January of 2006.

Status Sep, 2010

Date Opened Feb, 2001

DOLA Aug, 2006

Date Closed Not Reported

Not Reported

Not Reported

$750

Not Reported

Revolving

Individual

$0

Descriptions [?]

• Account transferred or sold
• Charged off account

No contact information provided by Equifax

---

This is scored as a CO. You'd want "Charged off account" removed plus any lates. Was this a CC?

[Anonymous]

It is for a Sears CC account. I doubt they would do anything with it given it's poor history. Although, I believe the dates were reported incorrectly as they had me 90 days past due for a long period of time.

[RobertEG]

Charged-off OC accounts reporting $0 balance are scored the same in FICO scoring as a charge-off reporting a balance.

FICO is scoring the fact of the charge-off.  FICO does not know where the debt has wandered to, or now resides.  When the charged-off account is updated to show a $0 balance, that is not necessarity a good sign.

What it means is that they have sold the debt to a debt collector, who can then report a CA to your credit report.

It also means that you can no longer offer payment to the OC, since they no longer own the debt.

Debt never goes away until paid.  It may mean that a CA is already reported on the debt, or may soon be.

I also agree witth the prior posts regarding avg age of accounts.  CAs are reporting accounts between the debt collector and the CRA.

They are not original creditor accounts with you, and arent included in AAoA scoring.