topic Re: Collection account only drops score a few points? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Collection account only drops score a few points?

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:20:31 GMT

I had a junk collector (midland) buy a very old account and sent me the first letter after i applied for my mortgage. It hit my credit scores but only droped them by 15 points!

I did research and found that if you have several good standing tradelines (i have 7 with good history, no missed payments) that they rarely hit the scores hard.

Is this true?

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

llecs — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:54:45 GMT

It's more of a scoring bucket issue. If you had perfectly clean reports with no lates, then I bet that CA would have dropped your FICO a bunch more. I've lost as much as 105 on a perfectly clean report. Conversely, if you have other baddies or recent baddies reporting, then the impact of that CA is minimal because other items are dragging your score down. Another factor is how that CA reports.

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:13:50 GMT

thanks, i did have a verizon collection that was reporting and updating every month. That might be it

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

llecs — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:15:33 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
thanks, i did have a verizon collection that was reporting and updating every month. That might be it

I had that too...big score drainer with their constant updates.

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:24:36 GMT

ya, as a condition for my mortgage, i had to pay it off, so i complained to the BBB and the collection company agreed to remove with full payment.

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

MidnightVoice — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 20:51:12 GMT

When a collection dropped off an otherwise clean report I gained an average of 51 points

Re: Collection account only drops score a few points?

RobertEG — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:31:50 GMT

While FICO has not made public the specific criterion for scoring of major derogs, such as a collection, I am presuming that its point impact is keyed to the age of the adverse item. For a collection, that should be the DOFD on the OC account, as that is the adverse item that ultimately resulted in the collection, and is the date used to determine its credit report exclusion date.

I would thus presume that a collection reporting with a later DOFD would impact more than a collection with an earler DOFD.

I would also presume, as previously stated, that your bucket category, such as the presence of other major derogs, would afftect the impact, as either the addition or deletion of a collection would most likely not result in a change in bucket category........

Does anyone know how FICO scores the decline in their impact over time?