topic Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:45:04 GMT

My scores keep dropping in the last couple of weeks - went from 668 to 585 in 14 days, and all because I applied for an online car loan before I really should. That'll learn me.

Here are some things in the pipeline, that I am curious if people think will give me any kind of boost on my credit score?

1. Have sent GW letters to about 6-10 creditors - two have already worked and deleted accounts. Am waiting for decisions from the others.

2. Paid off Ford Charge-Off - account will go from $5400 balance to zero. And NO, I didn't pay the whole $5400, but the settlement offer I accepted did explicitly state that it will appear on my CR as "Paid in Full," not "Settled for Less than Full Balance." Ford has also removed repo comments from my reports.

3. Requested some duplicate and erroneous inquiries be removed from my reports.

4. Waiting for investigation to conclude from EX - called Dell the other day to find out result of a GW letter I sent, and they have no record of my account on file. So, I disputed as "Not Mine" and am hoping that EX finds that the account has been deleted from Dell's files.

5. Target card balance is finally below 10% utilization, and Target is removing some 30 to 60 Days Past Due comments from my file (Feb-April) that should never have posted because I was enrolled in a payment plan to get caught back up with them, and I paid more than the minimum each month to get it paid off, and part of my agreement with them when I enrolled was that it would stop all the late pays on my credit reporting as well as late charges.

6. 4-6 Student Loan accounts will report as Closed (Paid) as part of a loan consolidation.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:11:01 GMT

That is one heck of a score drop.

Let us know how it works out,

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:19:15 GMT

Yeah - I got excited about my 668 and applied for a CapitalOne Auto Loan and got turned down in 10 minutes. And it cost me close to 85 points after 2 weeks. That was fun.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 02:54:57 GMT

All from a single inquiry? Something ain't right. Has to be something else on your report you've overlooked.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:07:18 GMT

Well, it was actually two inquiries. One auto loan inquiry and one because I applied for a Best Buy card.

I have pored over the the report for 2 weeks trying to see if there is anything else that changed, and the only thing else that happened was a creditor reported a positive pay history on a closed account because of a GW letter I sent in.

According to MyFICO Alert History:

6-15: Score is 668. Yay!

6-19: Three accounts report positively. No change in score.

6-21: Score drops to 655 (-13 points) because of the Best Buy inquiry.

6-27: Score drops to 622 (-23 points) because a closed Wells Fargo account changes status from Past Due (Not on Record) to Past Due ($0) and Account Notes include "Customer disputes this information - Investigation in Progress" - GW Letter

6-29: Score drops to 585 (-37 points) because the Capital One Auto Loan inquiry hits my account - there is also a RoadLoans inquiry, which COAF does automatically, but they should only hit me as one inquiry, right?

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:41:43 GMT

Neblett wrote:
6-29: Score drops to 585 (-37 points) because the Capital One Auto Loan inquiry hits my account - there is also a RoadLoans inquiry, which COAF does automatically, but they should only hit me as one inquiry, right?

When was the Roadloans inquiry?

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 11:12:40 GMT

RoadLoans inquiry was same day as COAF - if COAF doesn't approve you, they automatically bump you over to RoadLoans. The auto loan inquiries were technically on 6-15, which I thought affected the initial score drop, but FICO alerts say they didn't affect my credit score until 6-29. Not sure I really believe that, but that's what I get for being excited about my high FICO score. I should have just waited to apply until I went to the dealership.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 17:41:25 GMT

You might wanna call MyFico customer service. 37 points from a single inquiry seems like an awful lot. Ask MyFico specifically whether they can tell if the two inquiries are coded as auto loan inquiries and thus should be in the same de-duplication cycle. IOW, they count as one inquiry.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:25:33 GMT

Inquiries don't tank scores like that. Something else pulled the score down...maybe you went into another scoring pool, or a long-standing positive TL dropped off your report.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:46:52 GMT

More than one person has reported calling FI, talking with customer service, getting a lot of helpful info. At least one person I recall saying they talked with Barry and got a LOT of helpful info and analysis of their report.

Compared with the outsourced CSRs at the Big Three, it is night and day IMHE.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:06:07 GMT

Talked to the FICO people today, and it turns out a collection account that had disappeared from my EQ report suddenly popped back on it. This is what dropped my score about 30 pts.

NCO is the next PFD letter, once I actually have the funds to eliminate the account - this is wreaking havoc on my score.

But the FICO rep did say something that concerned me. There is still an error with EQ's reporting of 3 student loan accounts - they are STILL showing as 60 Days Past Due as of April. This is not accurate. The past due status has been removed by CSC and Equifax - confirmed one more time today. But FICO swears they downloaded data from EQ at the moment they pulled my report. Who is lying to me?

Anyway, the point is that the FICO rep said that once this error is corrected, it probably won't raise my score at all. How can that be? I only have 4 derogatory accounts on my EQ report, and 3 of them are the loan accounts! If 3/4 of those disappear and report as positive and paying as agreed, why wouldn't that have a positive impact on my score. Especially if little things can have such a HUGE negative effect?

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:33:44 GMT

Do you know when CSC and/or EQ removed? I ask because if it were say within the last 24-48 hours, then I might chalk it up to things not being updated at the time FICO pulled. However, if it was fixed on CSC and/or EQ back in April, then that would concern me that FICO isn't pulling current data.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:51:17 GMT

Over a month ago.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 21:21:18 GMT

Then my guess about the source of the error leads back to FICO.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:33:55 GMT

Only problem with this theory is that TrueCredit is reporting the Late Pay, too.

But I've seen my EQ and CSC files. The late pay notation just isn't there!

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 00:57:29 GMT

Might try calling EQ, but they will probably direct you to CSC. Ask about the late. See if it's still there. If the source of all evil says it ain't there, then it seems FICO might not have pulled the most current info.

[That's not fair. EQ isn't the source of all evil. EX is.]

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:55:31 GMT

Already talked to EQ and CSC numerous times and they have confirmed that the late pays have been removed, and have received my most recent reports in writing, and the late pays just are not there.

I don't know where TC and MyFICO are getting their EQ info, but it's not up-to-date, for some reason.

OH! And here's a kicker. Two positive aspects of my June 15 report disappeared from my FICO ScorePower report, and were replaced by an altogether different single positive aspect that is on July 2. They removed "You have an established credit history" (17 yrs/8 yrs avg age) and "You have many accounts that are in good standing" (8 accounts), and replaced them with "You've limited the use of your revolving credit" (28% - which is twice as high as it should be - some balances haven't posted yet). I demanded that they reconsider restoring the previous positive components to my score formula. It's not fair to remove them, when nothing has changed; in fact, those two components have gotten one month (and several derog accounts deleted) stronger.

But some good news from Target - they are removing all late pay notations as far back as January 2007 as one of the conditions of my payment plan to get current with them, which I have done and more - now my balance is down below 9% utilization, and will be paid to zero in 2 weeks.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:42:11 GMT

@Neblett wrote:
OH! And here's a kicker. Two positive aspects of my June 15 report disappeared from my FICO ScorePower report, and were replaced by an altogether different single positive aspect that is on July 2. They removed "You have an established credit history" (17 yrs/8 yrs avg age) and "You have many accounts that are in good standing" (8 accounts), and replaced them with "You've limited the use of your revolving credit" (28% - which is twice as high as it should be - some balances haven't posted yet). I demanded that they reconsider restoring the previous positive components to my score formula. It's not fair to remove them, when nothing has changed; in fact, those two components have gotten one month (and several derog accounts deleted) stronger.

Those comments are almost useless. They are obviously pulled from a list of possible generic comments, supposedly generated from a review of the report, and often incorrectly reflect the actual status of the CR items. The comments themselves do not affect the scores. As many, many people have reported (including myself), those comments are often contradictory and most people are better off ignoring them.

In fact, if everyone would stop reading their report comments and stop using the simulators, the average blood pressure around here would drop considerably.

Re: Scores Keep Dropping - Will This Work/Help?

Neblett — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:48:03 GMT

Today Experian reported my Ford charged off account with a zero balance and status as "Paid, Closed/Charged Off" - and not even a one point bump from yesterday, when it had a $5000 balance and status as "Charge Off/Repossession"?

Should I expect any kind of boost/bump? Or just be content that it's paid in the larger scheme of things?