topic Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score? in General Credit Topics

Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:23:39 GMT

DH has a student loan collection that we're trying to get removed (the account associated with the original loan has been removed, and the collection should therefore also be removed according to time since they should have the same DOFD). Sent a bunch of information to Equifax to try to dispute it, and instead they updated it as closed. So now the Date Reported has been changed from 07/2009 to 11/2010. Does this have any affect on score?

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

RobertEG — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:12:48 GMT

Collections are required, under FCRA 605(c), to be removed from credit reporting, and thus credit scoring, at 180-days, plus 7 years, from the DOFD on the OC account. The DOFD on the OC account is the one single date that sets this calculation into motion. Later reporrtings of anything dont reset that date-certain.

REmoval of anything from credit reporting by the OC does not automatically compel deletion of any CA reporting. They are separate matters, reported by separate parties.

What is the DOFD on the OC account?

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:22:47 GMT

The OC didn't remove the account, it simply came off due to time. The DOFD on the original student loan was 10/2003. It was deleted from DH reports in September. The account wasn't paid off until 2008, so it went into collections. Two collection accounts appeared on his reports (one for unsubsidized and one for subsidized portions) on 06/2006 and 12/2006 respectively. They say DOFD is 01/2006, which is the date that the original student loan was reported Closed - permanently assigned to government for collections. However, from what I've been told the CA DOFD should be the same as the OC DOFD and not reset simply because the OC became a CA.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

RobertEG — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:54:50 GMT

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Removal, for whatever reason, of prior OC account reporting, is totally separte from CA removal.

The OC account obviously had multiple prior delinquencies,

I assume, from what was posted, that the earliest date of delinquency was 10/2003.

That first delinquwency would then drop after 10/2010.

What about 11/2003 until 6/2006, when the collections were reported?

DOFD has no relevancy to what any CA reports, It goes back only to the OC account history. The OC provides the DOFD to the CRAs under the requirements of FCRA 623(a)(5)(A). Not the debt collector.

If the DOFD on the OC account was 10/2003, the CA reporting can continue until after 4/2011.

CA drop-off under FCRA 605(c) is from the date of the DOFD, plus 180-days, plus 7 years. It is not 7 years from DOFD.

Different dates.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 23:53:23 GMT

Yes, the OC account went delinquent 10/2003 and never became current. The delinquency actually dropped off 09/2010 - 6 years 11 months after DOFD. This one-month-less than 7 years reporting has been consistent with my other experiences even though I know legally they can report for 7 years on OC.

The date of removal on the CA accounts is listed as 12/2012 - I assume in relation to the 01/2006 DOFD which is being reported. This is not consistent with 7 years or 7.5 years.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

RobertEG — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:26:25 GMT

You have a problem that requires you to firmy establish your legal DOFD. That date triggers the removal date for the CA at 180-days plus 7 years thereafter.

Your best proof of DOFD are your account records, by way of statements sent to you, by the OC. Legally, your DOFD is one day after the due date of payment for which you either did not make the min payment, or were late in payment, and thereafter did not put the account back into good standng.

Secondary evidence is the reporting of a 30-day late to your CR. But that is just a guesstimate. 30-day lates to your CR are only reported until after you have passed 30-days from due date, and thus 30-days after the legal DOFD.

Tertiary is the "projected drop-off date" of a CA, as may have been included in your commercial CR. This is a calculaton made by the CRA, with no legal basis other than the DOFD repoarted to them. Did they add 7 or 7 1/2 years to the DOFD when calculating this "projection?" No legal weight.

The definitve statutory requirement for recordatiion of your DOFD in your credit file is FCRA 623(a)(5), which requires any furnisher of informatiion to a CRA to provide to the CRA, within 90-days of any collection or charge-of, the DOFD on their account.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:34:45 GMT

DH doesn't have any old statements regarding his SL. All we have is the letter stating that as of 08/2008 they were paid off in full. He was able to log onto dl.ed.gov and print out an Account Summary which states "Your Last Loan Payment" and shows 10/2003. (Not sure why this was used as the DOFD for the OC since technically it would have then gone delinquent 11/2003, but obviously we didn't argue and OC succesfully came off on its own 09/2003.) We mailed in a dispute with a copy of this Account Summary, but the DOFD on Equifax remained the same when we got the dispute response. All that was updated was that one of the accounts Date Reported was changed to 11/2010 because it hadn't previously been marked as closed.

Will the Date Reported change to this month affect his credit score? It previously said 07/2009.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

ShootingStar — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 02:46:55 GMT

I would like an answer to your original question, as well! Does an updated reporting affect FICO scoring negatively? I've often heard that it makes it look as though it is a current collection/issue, etc., therefore lowering score. Is anyone able to confirm whether or not this is the case?

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:27:50 GMT

Anyone have an answer for Shooting Star or I??

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:44:05 GMT

IME the change in updated reporting date had no impact on my scores. The information was still removed according to DOFD from all CR's.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

RobertEG — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 06:43:29 GMT

In my opinion, there are two answers to two different questions.

FCRA 605(c) is very clear as to how long a collection can continue to be included in a consumer credit report.

That is based on only one date-certain, which is the DOFD on the OC account. Period. You take that DOFD, first add 180 days to it, then the 7 year period of continued reporting under FCRA 605(a)(4), and the CA must drop from credit reporting at appox 7 1/2 years from the DOFD. No later dates reported by a CA can in any way reset the DOFD reported by the OC, and thus extends its inclusion in the consumer CR. That was the entire purpose of FCRA 605(c).

Once that date has expired, then question 2 becomes moot, since it can then no longer be in the CR for any FICO scoring consideratiion.

If question 2 is then what effect a DOLA reported by a CA has on credit scoring prior to its statuory CR deletion date, that is a separate issue.

Quite simply, no one can answer this question for you other than Fair Isaac. Credit scoring algorithms developed by anyone, including Fair Isaac, are proprietary trade secrets, and thus not subject to regulation under the FCRA. Some anecdotal posts on this site seem to indicate that the FICO scoring algorithms may, if a CA reports a DOLA on their collection activities, increase their negative impact in the FICO scoring algorithms. Maybe so. But it is not something subject to consumer ability to dispute.

All that is certain is that, 7 years plus 180-days from the date-certain DOFD on the OC account, it must be removed from a consumer CR, and thus from credit scoring by FICO. After that time, question 2, which is only a credit scoring impact issue while still in your CR, becomes moot.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 06:54:29 GMT

Robert, I really only posted looking for an answer to what you're calling question 2. As we've established, it is not a moot point because the account has not been removed yet. Since the estimated time of removal doesn't coincide properly with our records of DOFD, it is something I will likely continue to argue with the CRA - especially come 2011 when it should definitely be removed even given an extra 180 days. I'd therefore like to know if other's have had issues with an Equifax score dropping because of the Date Reported being updated to the current month. While I realize FICO algorithms are a trade secret, that isn't to say that the myFico community isn't perfectly capable of answering that yes, recent negatives affect your score more than older negatives, or that 1% seems to be the ideal util, even better than 0%, for example. The algorithms are secret, and exact results impossible for the layperson to calculate, but I don't think it's ridiculous for me to ask if the community has any experience with Date Reported affecting scores.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:24:58 GMT

Hi, Mank, here's how it's supposed to be: it's calculated off the date of assignment, not the DOLA, so any updating of DOLA shouldn't affect the score.

We keep reading that people say their scores were affected, and we're trying to find documented examples. Scoring comes from a formula. It's just a blind equation looking for numbers to plug in. The equation looks at the date that the collection was assigned, not at the DOLA, so changes in the DOLA should be irrelevant. Now what might happen is that consumers get an alert about changes on their reports, and think that something happened to their scores, when in fact it was more of a heads-up alert.

I'm certainly not saying that score changes might not happen, but they're not supposed to. If someone's score definitely changes because of an updated DOLA, and there was nothing else going on with their reports that might have been the real trigger, then something is being coded or reported wrong and needs to be fixed.

That's why we've been trying to get examples of this happening, examples that have screenshots of the before-and-after reports and FICO scores. If CA's are reporting incorrectly, or if the CRA's are putting dates into wrong fields, FICO needs to know about it so that it can be fixed.

Here's where I waded into the issue (scared witless, I might add): Settle or Pay in Full

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

ShootingStar — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 15:49:01 GMT

HUTS -- thank you! Very interesting and helpful info!

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

RobertEG — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:13:36 GMT

Mank, I totally agree with you!

Forgive me if I gave any implication that your question was rediculous or moot. It is an excellent question!!!!!

As HTSU said so well, these are gray areas. All we can really go on are anecdotal experiences, for the FCRA does not specifically regulate credit scoring algorithms.

I agree that there is nothing moot about something that still appears in your CR. My only point was that once the 7 1/2 period expires, based only on DOFD, then the question of effect on CA updates to credit reporting, thereafter, becomes moot. Sorry for the confusion.

From the excellent information posted by HTSU, it appears that the controlling date for credit scoring impact is the date that the OC either placed/assigned the debt to a debt collector (or the debt collector purchased the debt), and not a later date when the debt collector actually posted the collection to a CRA? The OC reports their date of collection referral to the CRA under a status update in the OC account. It may be months, or even years, after an OC refers a debt/account for collection, and when the debt collector then "opens" a collection account with the CRA by reporting to a CRA.

In reading the definition of the reporting codes as set forth in the CRA reporting manual, for debt collectors when establishing a CA with the CRA, it says exactly what HTSU said. The date opened for a collection account is the "date the account was placed/assigned to the third party debt collection agency or purchased by the debt purchaser."

I will speculate that many debt collectors, when reporting the "date opened" for a collection, dont report the date of OC assignment to them, but rather report the "date opened" as the date of their posting to the CRA. If FICO uses that date for assessing the impact of the collection on credit scoring, then it could lead to FICO scoring of increased impact on the recency of the collection. So it may be an issue of inaccurate debt collector reporting of "date opened" when reporting a CA,

I see your point.

Re: Does Date Reported Affect Credit Score?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 11:05:35 GMT

I recently had my credit score drop about 50 point in one month, from 691-639 tu. 2 things happened in that month 1) I went from 10% utilization to 0 zero % utilization and my credit was pulled by 2 mortgage lenders. 2) I noticed that an account which was closed in a bankruptcy 4yrs ago was reported 2 in this same month. What could have caused my drop, an how soon will I get it back up