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Question on lates and scoring

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Anonymous
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Question on lates and scoring

I have been going back and forth with TU about the reporting on a closed auto loan from Cap One for several months now and even made a few calls to Cap One for assistance and still nothing is fixed. I had some issues happening during this loan in 2015 and had several lates inluding 2 60 day lates. My last late on this account was Jan 2016 and then everything else after that was good until I paid off the loan in 2017. TU is flip flopping everything and showing 2015 as good and all payments in 2016 as late. EX and EQ have it reported right. And of course my TU is my worst score. I am good willing the heck out of Cap One on some of these lates. Am I correct that my TU score would go up some if they would get the reporting right and show those lates as 2 years old instead of showing as 1 year old? Also would there be any significant impact or benefit to keep GW Cap One to remove those 2 60 day lates or least maybe down grade them to 30 day lates? Any input would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Message 1 of 12
11 REPLIES 11
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring

If the lates are incorrectly reported, you're not really asking for GW, you're asking for correct reporting.  In this case, I think a dispute would be your best bet if they don't make the correction for you upon a request.  30 and 60 day lates do lose some sting after 2 years, so it definitely would be in your best interest to have them report the lates accurately.  I would focus on that part first, then after everything is reported correctly go down the GW route.

 

When requesting GW, I suggest asking for 100% forgiveness, not asking for a "downgrade" to a 30 day late.  Generally speaking, they're either going to agree to make an adjustment for you or not agree.  It's very rare for them to find middle ground.  A downgrade to a 30 day likely wouldn't do much for you anyway, as they're quite similar to 60's in that they're minors not majors.

 

If your TU vs your EX and EQ reports are otherwise identical outside of this account, it serves as a pretty nice data point as to how 60 day lates are weighed in terms of scoring when they are 1 year old verses 2 years old.  What is your TU score compared to EX and EQ and are your reports otherwise equal outside of this one account incorrectly reported on TU?

Message 2 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring

QUESTION: I have 2 over 30 days late accounts reporting and both are over four years old. At this point is it worth the GW letter strategy to beg to have them removed or should I just wait for 3 more years for them to fall off my account?

Assuming the former, how much of a bump in my credit score should I expect if I have at least 1, or best case, both of them removed?

Message 3 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring


@Anonymous wrote:

QUESTION: I have 2 over 30 days late accounts reporting and both are over four years old. At this point is it worth the GW letter strategy to beg to have them removed or should I just wait for 3 more years for them to fall off my account?

Assuming the former, how much of a bump in my credit score should I expect if I have at least 1, or best case, both of them removed?


There's no way for people here to answer the "is it worth it" question, for a number of reasons.  The biggest is that worth is a question of what a person values, and the folks here can't know what's important to you.  They don't know how happy getting the derogs off would make you and don't know how unhappy doing all the work (repeated letter writing) would make you.  Secondarily, there is factual information they are lacking about your situation, e.g.: what are your FICO 8 scores now?  Do you plan to buy a house in the next three years?  If so, what are your mortgage scores right now?

 

As far as the bump estimation question, the removal of exactly one of the two lates would not help much,  Removing both would help your mortgage scores a good deal, even if the removal happened a year from now.  The FICO 8 score damage may have softened quite a bit over the last four years, so removing both would help your FICO 8 scores less than for your mortgage scores (FICO 8 punishes people much less who appear to have turned their bad behavior around.  The mortgage models are less forgiving.)  All of this is is assuming that all of your derogs in totality consist of two Day 30 lates.

Message 4 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring

Solid feedback from CGID above.  I would certainly say it's "worth" a GW letter or two regarding the 30 day lates, simply because they are of the weakest severity and therefore arguably the easiest to get removed, especially if you payment history with the lender is favorable for a length of time both before and after the issues.  If you get a "no" response, whether or not it is worth it to you to invest more time in it as CGID said depends on how you value it.  IMO though, trying once is definitely worth doing, as many people do report a favorable result on a first try at times depending on the lender and again, your lates are of the weakest severity.

Message 5 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring

Whoever is reporting false information and not correcting it is violating the law.  You are under the burden to prove it so you want to have bank statements and loan statements as well as communications between you and the CRA and lender.

 

I assume you've kept ALL communication between the CRA and the lender via postal mail with CMRRR so you have a legal paper trail, correct?

 

If you have all the paperwork, it's time to get a lawyer and sue.  Incorrect reporting is only a violation if the company doing the incorrect reporting doesn't correct it in a timely fashion.

 

You can do it yourself and make a little bit of cash, or you can have a lawyer doing it on consignment and the lawyer gets a ton of fees for their time from the courts.

 

Either way, this isn't going to get solved by the phone if that's where you're communicating.  Paper trail via the mail with CMRRR on everything.

Message 6 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring


@Anonymous wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

QUESTION: I have 2 over 30 days late accounts reporting and both are over four years old. At this point is it worth the GW letter strategy to beg to have them removed or should I just wait for 3 more years for them to fall off my account?

Assuming the former, how much of a bump in my credit score should I expect if I have at least 1, or best case, both of them removed?


There's no way for people here to answer the "is it worth it" question, for a number of reasons.  The biggest is that worth is a question of what a person values, and the folks here can't know what's important to you.  They don't know how happy getting the derogs off would make you and don't know how unhappy doing all the work (repeated letter writing) would make you.  Secondarily, there is factual information they are lacking about your situation, e.g.: what are your FICO 8 scores now?  Do you plan to buy a house in the next three years?  If so, what are your mortgage scores right now?

 

As far as the bump estimation question, the removal of exactly one of the two lates would not help much,  Removing both would help your mortgage scores a good deal, even if the removal happened a year from now.  The FICO 8 score damage may have softened quite a bit over the last four years, so removing both would help your FICO 8 scores less than for your mortgage scores (FICO 8 punishes people much less who appear to have turned their bad behavior around.  The mortgage models are less forgiving.)  All of this is is assuming that all of your derogs in totality consist of two Day 30 lates.


Great points for consideration...thanks!

 

My real FICO's are, or at least WERE hovering in the 720'ISH area but I did just close on my new home yesterday and since I've been living in an apartment for 5.5 years where my lights and water were built into my rent I had two pulls today from the utilities in addition to the mortgage pulls.  FWIW, long story short - I had a dozen crap CC's with AF's and store cards I've closed over the last year and a half as I replaced them with prime CC's so my AAoA *sucks* (1 yr, 5 mo's) and I've got like 30'ish new inquiries now too.  A good number of those are for personally rate shopping for a better personal loan rate (takeover of another one I had at 30%+), car refinance loan (went from 9.9% to 4.9% thru PenFed) and, again, now for my mortgage.  I thought I was fast-tracking my way back to great credit (started around 600'ish a couple years ago) and doing myself a great favor for a mortgage, I didn't know my AAoA would go down until I found you guys, but by then I'd already closed all of my oldest open accounts in favor for new and better CC's.

 

As for those two 30 day late pays, I didn't even know I had them thanks to CK and a couple of others.  It DID come up during the mortgage financing which is how I found out they're there.  They had me sign a LoE explaining both were oversights and that I've since learned a valuable lesson and have had no lates since.

 

As for "what is it I'm looking to accomplish?", my next goal is to get a 5-digit credit card in the $15-20K range as soon as it's feasable.  My highest CL right now is $7K with 2 others at $5K, along with about 8 others with CL's ranging from $2250-3500.

 

What do you guys recommend at this point and under these circumstances?  Thanks again.

Message 7 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring


@Anonymous wrote:


 

My real FICO's are, or at least WERE hovering in the 720'ISH area but I did just close on my new home yesterday and since I've been living in an apartment for 5.5 years where my lights and water were built into my rent I had two pulls today from the utilities in addition to the mortgage pulls.  FWIW, long story short - I had a dozen crap CC's with AF's and store cards I've closed over the last year and a half as I replaced them with prime CC's so my AAoA *sucks* (1 yr, 5 mo's) and I've got like 30'ish new inquiries now too.  A good number of those are for personally rate shopping for a better personal loan rate (takeover of another one I had at 30%+), car refinance loan (went from 9.9% to 4.9% thru PenFed) and, again, now for my mortgage.  I thought I was fast-tracking my way back to great credit (started around 600'ish a couple years ago) and doing myself a great favor for a mortgage, I didn't know my AAoA would go down until I found you guys, but by then I'd already closed all of my oldest open accounts in favor for new and better CC's.

 



Closing those credit cards did not affect your AAoA.  I am guessing that you think that because you are using Credit Karma to assess your AAoA.  Karma's summary page only gives a correct AAoA if all your accounts are open.  Most of us have closed accounts and therefore Karma gives the wrong reading.  A free tool that gives a correct AAoA is credit.com.  There are other tools out there to give you a correct AAoA.

Message 8 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring

Thank you for that. I thought I was doing the right thing. I have two other cards left with AF's (First Nat'l CC & Legacy Visa - both with $2250 CL's) that I've been afraid to close because they are my oldest OPEN accounts at about 3 years each. They've done their job and now I'll be happy to get rid of them the moment I can get $5500 in CLI's on one or a combo of my new cards. Thanks for the clarification and the suggested website.
Message 9 of 12
Anonymous
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Re: Question on lates and scoring


@Anonymous wrote:
Thank you for that. I thought I was doing the right thing. I have two other cards left with AF's (First Nat'l CC & Legacy Visa - both with $2250 CL's) that I've been afraid to close because they are my oldest OPEN accounts at about 3 years each. They've done their job and now I'll be happy to get rid of them the moment I can get $5500 in CLI's on one or a combo of my new cards. Thanks for the clarification and the suggested website.

Do either of those two cards have an annual fee?  If not, why not keep them? 

Message 10 of 12
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