Rebucketed?

[Anonymous]

(All data from EQ scorewatch reports)

October 10, 2010:

EQ FICO - 716

Hurting

1. New account (4 months)

2. Heavy use of revolving credit (31%)

3. Recently looking for credit (3 inqs past year)

Helping

1. No evidence of serious delinquency

2. Recently been paying bills on time (last 30 day late 4 years ago)

3. Established Credit History (9 years 1 month - AAoA 4 years)

New Report - 1/19/11

EQ FICO: 704

Hurting

1. Missed payment (same missed payment from 4 years ago mentioned above)

2. New account (6 months old now)

3. High Revolving Balances (not %, amount... about $8,000... 2k less than in October 2010 above)

Helping

1. No serious delinquency

2. Paying bills on time (4 years 3 months ago now)

3. Limited utilization (23% now)

So I am totally confused. My AAoA is going up, my debt levels are going down, and I have not missed any payments or any new accounts. Is this a rebucket to lose 15 points?

[Anonymous]

Anybody!

[llecs]

Maybe. I always assume that rebucking didn't happen and work backwards to dismiss everything else before throwing in the towel and declare myself rebucketed. Make sure nothing fell off or was added on. Make sure your balances are the same and make sure that you have no new CCs reporting a balance (than can throw off a score). Make sure nothing negative updated and make sure nothing old, that wasn't previously updating, updated (good or bad). Make sure there were no CLDs. Focus on the account with the missed payment. Make sure that didn't update with a newer reported date for whatever reason. Even if your overall util is lower, higher util on a given card, esp. if maxed out, or more TLs reporting a balance can lead to a decrease. Any of these reasons can easily throw off your score 15 points or more.

Then reverse course and look for reasons to be rebucketed. Look to see if your oldest TL, oldest revolving, or oldest installment hit a birthday. AAoA is only measured in whole years, so your AAoA may not have changed. To be sure, do some math to see if it hit 5 yrs (or decreased if any OC account fell off). Pull your full reports from EQ to see if any lates dropped. Remember, you can be rebucketed due to any number of these things above which would lead to the dramatic changes in your pos/neg items on the 2nd and 3rd page. Rule out the obvious. If you are still scratching your head, then shrug it off and write it off as rebucketing.