topic Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame in General Credit Topics

Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:29:41 GMT

I have searched around the boards and unfortunately was not able to find my answer.. things were close but I don't think it was precise enough. If I missed it, sorry about reposting an existing question and answer.

I had a collection account that was listed on my Equifax credit report that I paid for and was deleted by the collection agency, and just to verify it's deletion I submitted a request for rewiew by Equifax to please delete the report on their end with the account number, etc. They sent a message back stating that the collection is no longer on my credit report. It's been a few weeks at least, and there has been no change on my "Score Watch" monitoring service that I'm subscribed to. Any reason why there has not been updated even though it says "Monitoring: On"? Does it take a month or so to update? I thought it was a daily-ish update.

If anyone knows, please let me know. Thank you!

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

llecs — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:56:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have searched around the boards and unfortunately was not able to find my answer.. things were close but I don't think it was precise enough. If I missed it, sorry about reposting an existing question and answer.

I had a collection account that was listed on my Equifax credit report that I paid for and was deleted by the collection agency, and just to verify it's deletion I submitted a request for rewiew by Equifax to please delete the report on their end with the account number, etc. They sent a message back stating that the collection is no longer on my credit report. It's been a few weeks at least, and there has been no change on my "Score Watch" monitoring service that I'm subscribed to. Any reason why there has not been updated even though it says "Monitoring: On"? Does it take a month or so to update? I thought it was a daily-ish update.

If anyone knows, please let me know. Thank you!

ScoreWatch is a product offered by both Equifax and myFICO. While I haven't used EQ's version, I use myFICO's SW version now and so I'm going to assume for a minute that they operate in a similar way.

Using myFICO's version as a guide, you won't get alerted to dropped baddies like this collection. Now, assuming it offers a target score setting, if your target score was met or exceeded then you should get a score alert and that'll come within a week or so.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:54:30 GMT

Ah, I did not realize that Score Watch was something Equifax offered as well. I am currently subscribed with myFICO for both of my TransUnion (FICO Quarterly Monitoring) and Equifax (Score Watch) credit agencies. I use freecreditreport.com for my Experian FAKO, only because I'm forced to.

As far as not getting an alert.. I guess I find that odd, as I thought it was fully monitoring any changes that are made on my credit report. I have gotten alerts in the past when an account went into "investigation" (when I initially checked to see if I could have it deleted), so I assumed I would get an alert when it was in fact deleted and a jump in credit score after it was deleted. I was trying not to pull my report since I only have one free equifax report/score left to use.

You mentioned an alert within a week or so.. should that have been a week or so from when the collection dropped from my credit report, or a week or so from now (which would be almost a month since it's been deleted)? Just trying to get an idea so I know what to expect in the future. Which I hopefully will not have to worry about as this is the only thing on all of my credit reports as a blemish.. I have mid to high 700 for TU & EX, but my EQ is only at 680. Frustrating to still see that. :/

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

haulingthescoreup — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:31:47 GMT

What do you have your score target set to? Be sure to set it to your most current score, odd as that sounds. Then, if a new score moves either higher or lower as a result of the collection being removed, you should get an alert.

Be sure to check your spam filters and junk mail filters.

Do you know for sure that it's no longer showing on your EQ report? For instance, if you can refresh all three reports through freecreditreport-yada-yada, you could check there.

If you still have collections or other serious baddies, especially if they're more recent than this one, your score might not have changed, or not much. It's when the last one comes off that you really see changes. Alternatively, if you have multiples, and the newest is removed, you'd probably see an improvement from that.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:03:31 GMT

I don't have my score target set to anything, currently. Each time my credit score changed, it would update me via e-mail and would also update it on my Score Watch subscription on myFICO's website. I also double check my filters and made sure it wasn't there

I sent in a request to Equifax to make sure it was deleted and they responded saying it is no longer on my credit report. And I could refresh via FCR, but I'd rather not pay $29 only to discover that FICO's update system is slow.

As far as other collections.. this is (or was) the only collection/account/etc listed on my credit report. I'm buying a house soon and so I'm rather focused on making sure everything is up to date. I don't want my lenders pulling my FICO as it is now, reflecting something that is not correct.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

chasmith — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:29:31 GMT

I set my score target to my current score. That way any change in score triggers a notification.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

haulingthescoreup — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:04:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I don't have my score target set to anything, currently. Each time my credit score changed, it would update me via e-mail and would also update it on my Score Watch subscription on myFICO's website. I also double check my filters and made sure it wasn't there

I sent in a request to Equifax to make sure it was deleted and they responded saying it is no longer on my credit report. And I could refresh via FCR, but I'd rather not pay $29 only to discover that FICO's update system is slow.

As far as other collections.. this is (or was) the only collection/account/etc listed on my credit report. I'm buying a house soon and so I'm rather focused on making sure everything is up to date. I don't want my lenders pulling my FICO as it is now, reflecting something that is not correct.

I'd say that the lack of a target score is why you're not being alerted. Since it doesn't have a "before" score, you haven't been alerted to an "after" score.

You do have Score Watch, right, as opposed to having just once pulled your Equifax myFICO score report via FICO Standard, or maybe the Suze kit? Those don't alert you to changes, so I just wanted to check.

If you have SW, go to your My Purchases page and click on Score Watch. When it opens up to a page called Welcome to Score Watch, click on the Settings tab up and the top. You'll see a list of options on the left, and the first one says "Whenever your FICO® score reaches a target score of _____ " Click "change" after that and enter your known score. While you're on that screen, go ahead and tweak any other settings.

The problem is that your EQ score has probably already changed, so I don't know what effect it will have to enter an outdated score. If you don't have any additional changes coming up, there won't be anything to trigger another SW change, where you get an alert.

You might want to call up customer service, tell them that you didn't have things set up correctly, and ask if they can give you an extra report, now that you know how to set up your monitoring. They're generally pretty good-natured about such things.

Phone:
1-800-319-4433
Mon-Fri 6am to 6pm Pacific Time
Sat 7am to 4pm Pacific Time

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:02:19 GMT

Alright, I will go ahead and change it so update me when I get a new score. It shouldn't require that though.. here is the information I was getting in the past though without filling out any of the "alert reqs":

9/1/2010	681	Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN .		More info
	7/17/2010	674	Score Watch® alert: Your score has gone up.	Yes	More info
	7/15/2010	669	Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged.	Yes	More info
	7/12/2010	669	Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN .		More info
	7/2/2010	643	Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged.		More info
	7/1/2010	643	Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN .	Yes	More info
	6/27/2010	630	Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged.	Yes	More info
	6/26/2010	630	Score Power report: Your score is 630.		More info

It would inform me of these changes both on the website and also over e-mail.. so I'm not sure why there is some new "change", or else FICO is just being slow..

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:54:01 GMT

uritel wrote:

Alright, I will go ahead and change it so update me when I get a new score. It shouldn't require that though.. here is the information I was getting in the past though without filling out any of the "alert reqs":

9/1/2010 681 Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN . More info
7/17/2010 674 Score Watch® alert: Your score has gone up. Yes More info
7/15/2010 669 Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged. Yes More info
7/12/2010 669 Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN . More info
7/2/2010 643 Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged. More info
7/1/2010 643 Score Watch® alert: Possible lower rate on a new HLOAN . Yes More info
6/27/2010 630 Score Watch® alert: Your score is unchanged. Yes More info
6/26/2010 630 Score Power report: Your score is 630. More info

It would inform me of these changes both on the website and also over e-mail.. so I'm not sure why there is some new "change", or else FICO is just being slow..

I agree you shouldn't have to do this.

Once a week or so Scorewatch is supposed to crunch your EQ score and if it goes up or down you are supposed to be notified, and even if it doesn't change it still sends an email letting you know it hasn't changed. Again this happens once a week. You may have not given it enough time. Just keep in mind it's only when it crunches NOT when the info is updated.

A score alert due to crossing a threshold on what you set an alert for is different. If you look at the history of your score alerts it will say when and if an email was sent.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 21:15:58 GMT

Humorously enough, I just got my Score Watch alert today. Got this message:

"For the past week, myFICO® Score Watch has been monitoring your FICO® score and credit report for important changes.

No important changes were found that caused an alert. Score Watch will continue monitoring and send an alert if an important change is detected."

It looks like the information was deleted from my credit report about a month ago, so either FICO has not been updated with the info, or is not properly updating my info, or else having a collection deleted from my account did not warrant any change on the report or credit score change.

Guess we'll see.. maybe I just have to call.

Re: Equifax Score Watch update time frame

GregB — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:53:17 GMT

Scorewatch needs to have the alert parameters set. Some of them default to amounts such as a change in CC balance of $500. The one for a score is blank. If you don't set that to your current score, it won't alert you if you JUST have a score change without meeting some of the other parameters. If a negative drops off, that wouldn't get you an alert UNLESS it meets some of the other parameters. If a NEW negative appeared, that would get you an alert. It would be nice to have the option to generate an alert over any score change.

Scorewatch gets its info from EQ, which updates in a few days after the creditor notifies them. TU updates at about the same speed. EX is faster. Too bad we can't get the info of Scorewatch with the speed of updates from EX.

Properly set, Scorewatch will get you what you want in that any new negatives, plus any other parameters that you set, will get you an alert.