topic Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?! in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

01mommy — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:48:30 GMT

Morning, All! I hope someone can give me insight here...

I have used ScoreWatch and USAA for a little over a month to track my progress with deletions and corrections. Since signing up, I've had 3 collection accounts removed, but have seen no change in score!?! I also disputed the lates on my mortgage and everybody but Equifax deleted the entire tradeline for some reason?

1.) Is the deletion of the mortgage TL (open since 2001) hurting my score overall? Will it come back after they report for this month, or is there something I need to do to get it back?

2.) I still have a few more collections that are in the process of being deleted...is it unrealistic to expect a score boost when they're removed? I know being paid doesn't help, but I thought removed would surely bring in some points!

Please help me understand what could be taking place here!

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:51:50 GMT

When you say you have a "few more collections" left to be deleted... how many is a "few more"?

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:57:22 GMT

I dont think you will see a jump in score until all collections come off.

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

01mommy — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:27:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
When you say you have a "few more collections" left to be deleted... how many is a "few more"?

4 on EX and TU, 5 on EQ...but I've come down from 13. One of the issues on SW was a "recent" collection from 11/11, which has also been deleted.

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

01mommy — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:29:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I dont think you will see a jump in score until all collections come off.

I hope not...the only non-medical CA is from Credit Protection and I've been GWing them and the OC to death and nothing yet

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

Revelate — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:21 GMT

@01mommy wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I dont think you will see a jump in score until all collections come off.
I hope not...the only non-medical CA is from Credit Protection and I've been GWing them and the OC to death and nothing yet

It's hard to say. We're all pretty confident that if you go from 1 -> 0 collections, that you generally get a boost in score, or at least a likely rebucketing which is still nothing but goodness in the long run.

When we're talking more than one collection, there's probably a magic number above 1 which is a breakpoint but I don't think anyone has ever been able to track it explicitly and it's really difficult to make even a swag. Just because, I'd say that if it's anywhere it's likely in the 2-4 range, but I honestly have no real idea and FICO is not known to really do things in the interest of the consumer... it's possible there's no magic number above 1 as well unfortunately, I just don't know.

I know the mods frown on cross-posting, but you may want to try in the Rebuilding forum too if you don't get a better answer here.

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

Anonymous — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:41:46 GMT

Going from two to one (each older than four years) gave me an increase, about ~10-20 points IIRC.

EDIT: Your USAA scores are FAKO, don't forget. There's no know correlation to those and FICO scores.

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

01mommy — Fri, 11 May 2012 12:44:53 GMT

I guess 4 is still pretty high. Most of the ones I had deleted were simply errors, but these last few were valid medical collections that had been placed for collection within the past year, so I was confident that those were the money shots based on my SW advice. I'm gonna have to read up on "rebucketing" because I'm not entirely familiar with it. I'm confused, but I know it's a process and that I'm on the right track...as much as I've learned on these forums, it just gets frustrating when the "answer" isn't more apparent!! Thanks for the input!

Re: Collections Gone, But NO Change in Score!?!

thankfulheart — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:26:28 GMT

Along my journey, I have learned that a "major derogatory" is a major derog. Quantity doesn't seem to count all that much. As I've had collections removed, there have been slight score creeps, but no big jumps. Imagine my horror when a paid IRS tax lien was removed with a score increase of 0. Once your collections are gone, will you still have any other derogs? Public records? 90+ lates? Those are enough to keep you in the mire of the "dirty bucket" as well, so you still might not see much point gain.

I am trying to stop being indignant at the (to me) innate unfairness of it all. I tell myself, CERTAINLY this is what is hurting the most, but in reality, it may be something else, I have no way of knowing thanks to the opacity of the system.