topic Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 06:13:18 GMT

A dispute opens and my Equifax FICO 8 tanked 107 points from 743 to 636. Is this normal? Can I expect the points

to come back after the dispute closes? The tradeline is correct. Sky Blue Credit Repair opened the dispute.

Verizon account opened in 2008.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:20:31 GMT

@dafeagans wrote:
A dispute opens and my Equifax FICO 8 tanked 107 points from 743 to 636. Is this normal? Can I expect the points
to come back after the dispute closes? The tradeline is correct. Sky Blue Credit Repair opened the dispute.

Verizon account opened in 2008.

When you use a credit repair service you don't know what they are saying on your behalf. I myself looked into Sky Blue before deciding to do it myself. They said their letters are proprietary so they would not tell me how they dispute exactly. Since you said the tradeline was accurate I'm not sure what their plan was. An 11 year old account was probably helping you more than hurting you. Unless the dispute comes back as it was before or better (bad stuff gone, good stuff remains, for example) those points are most likely gone.

If your scores are low then you really have nothing to lose by disputing. Once your scores reach were yours were (743) it's better to just let stufff age off imho. Btw, I'm not saying you MUST do it yourself. That's a popular opinion here. I don't see anything wrong with outsourcing the work. I'm just saying there are risk. If I did outsource it, I would go with someone local rather than a big national firm that cranks out thousands of the same letters with your name and address inserted. Good luck. Follow up with them. If remember correctly they have a no questions asked money back guarantee.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:37:15 GMT

when you dispute something they block it from affecting your score until the dispute ends. this means that it was helping your score by 107 points, and if the dispute succeeds and they remove that account your score will lose those points for good. why did you dispute that account?

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:31:52 GMT

because I'm a dummy, or at least I feel like one.

Before that dispute, the trade line was an 11 year old paid collection. When the dispute opens, I think it is treated as

an unpaid, open collection account??

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Remedios — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:50:31 GMT

No, it's not treated as such but if you're disputing valid collection, especially with Verizon, you can bet it will come back as verified, which will cause a scoring drop.
Drop is more significant older the account is and if it has not been updating regularly.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 14:16:55 GMT

an account will only remain on your report for 10 years after the date it was closed if it was helping your score, and 7 years if it was harming. so if it was closed for 11 years it shouldn't of been on there anymore. that's how you can get it removed even if it's valid.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-long-collections-stay-credit-report/

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

calyx — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 15:36:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
an account will only remain on your report for 10 years after the date it was closed if it was helping your score, and 7 years if it was harming. so if it was closed for 11 years it shouldn't of been on there anymore. that's how you can get it removed even if it's valid.
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-long-collections-stay-credit-report/

7 years from DOFD - not when the account was opened; since Verizon tends to handle collections themselves, this was probably still the original account.

OP can you clarify?

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 01:24:29 GMT

That's right. The account was opened 11 years ago, but first delinquency was about 3 years ago.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 04:05:47 GMT

the older those derogs become the less it impacts your score. the aging brackets are: never late. 0-5mo. 6-11mo. 12-23mo. 24mo+.

the derog would of been in the oldest age bracket already.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 06:57:09 GMT

Thanks for the input everybody. I'm hoping that when the dispute closes, my score will jump back up.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 07:37:13 GMT

UPDATE - UPDATE

Thanks for all the input folks, I really do appreciate it.

Shortly after Equifax closed the dispute, I got all 107 points back. EQ Fico 8 jumped from 636 back to 743. This is the best I've seen my credit in quite a while. Ok, guess it's time to apply for my first credit card in over 5 years.

From what I've read about other people's approvals, I applied for a PenFed credit card thinking that a 743 EQ Fico 8, 85k before taxes should get me a decent starting limit. My only derogatory is the previously mentioned Verizon paid collection.

Equifax: Denied - EQ Fico 9 (671). We have carefully considered your request, but
were unable to approve it due to the following reason(s): • LIMITED CREDIT EXPERIENCE

Disappointed..

EQ Fico 8 - 743, Fico 9 - 671

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Revelate — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 16:57:03 GMT

@dafeagans wrote:
UPDATE - UPDATE
Thanks for all the input folks, I really do appreciate it.

Shortly after Equifax closed the dispute, I got all 107 points back. EQ Fico 8 jumped from 636 back to 743. This is the best I've seen my credit in quite a while. Ok, guess it's time to apply for my first credit card in over 5 years.

From what I've read about other people's approvals, I applied for a PenFed credit card thinking that a 743 EQ Fico 8, 85k before taxes should get me a decent starting limit. My only derogatory is the previously mentioned Verizon paid collection.

Equifax: Denied - EQ Fico 9 (671). We have carefully considered your request, but
were unable to approve it due to the following reason(s): • LIMITED CREDIT EXPERIENCE

Disappointed..

EQ Fico 8 - 743, Fico 9 - 671

Post your current tradelines in credit cards for recommendations: starting with 2 decent secured cards with minimum deposit is basically fool proof vis a vis Discover and BOFA though there may be better ones now.

If you have no open credit cards, and I'm assuming if you took that large of a drop from the dispute on the collection you probably don't have much in the way of positive tradelines reporting... and the Penfed deny reason pretty much confirms that.

It isn't just about the score, not all scores are created equally but it's interesting to see the FICO 9 score in comparison to your FICO 8 and it's probably tradeline history related. I'd be curious to know what your file has on it too in terms of open/closed/derogatory too FWIW.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Nov 2019 05:54:27 GMT

OP Before you apply for a credit card, do your research find out which algorithm and which CRA the bank typically uses. Then find out what your score is for that flavor. Obviously optimize if possible before apping.

Had you done so, you would’ve known they use FICO 9 and you would’ve known your score and you would’ve known you had a lesser chance of success there than another institution that used the flavor you had a better score with.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 06:42:28 GMT

Revelate, thanks for the input. I really do appreciate it.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

dafeagans — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 06:44:41 GMT

Thanks Birdman7. I'm learning more every day. Thanks again for the input.

Re: Dispute opens - Equifax FICO 8 immediately dropped 107 points

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 01:36:09 GMT

Defeagans I’m glad you got your points back. That shows you how much that account was helping you due too it’s age.

When it went into dispute, it was totally ignored by the algorithm. It was not treated as a open collection, it was treated as if it had been dropped off of your report. In other words, had the credit repair dispute succeeded you would’ve lost that many points. Sometimes things are better left alone rather than disputed, as you can see from your example.

Rather than going out and applying for cards again, why don’t you do like Rev suggested and post your information and then the forum can give you recommendations that best suit your situation, so you’ll have a better chance of approval. Plus at the same time you contribute data points to the forum.

Either way good luck, I’m glad you got your points back.