topic Re: Did they remove the CO??? in General Credit Topics

Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 14:58:47 GMT

So I just got dispute results back from TU. The OC was Fingerhut, account was CO in 2016, and I PIF 6/2019.

It is remaining on report until 2023, and the last update was 6/2019 when I paid it off. I disputed it bc the last payment date was off by about 6 months, showing 12/19 as last payment.

Prior to me getting the results in the mail, I received numerous alerts for "improved account". Looking at the pic below, did the creditor remove the CO??? That's what it looks like to me. If so, can I get this to reflect on EX by sending them this paperwork??? Equifax just deleted it, so I'm not arguing with them at all. Any advice would help.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Remedios — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:49:53 GMT

It's still there. CO is not a derog per se, derog is the worst delinquency on the account, which in your case is 120 days.

Declaring account charged off is simply accounting measure to prevent inflating accounts receivable.

To me, based on your screenshot, they corrected the last payment/activity date.

Also, it looks like you have a double whammy there, CO that got sold to collections. Is that still on your report?

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:54:52 GMT

They didn't remove it from your report, based on the screenshot it's still there. Why did you dispute it based on the incorrect date of payment? Absolutely no point to that...doing so will just update the reporting date and possibly cause a score drop. All that matters is that they have the date of first delinquency correct.

Also, no, even if one CA removes a negative item doesn't mean you can just show the other CAs and expect them to automatically remove it too.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:25:04 GMT

The account shown in the shot is still on EX and TU. It says "Sold to another lender" but it was just transferred to their collection department. There was never a separate CA that reported, never.

I ask this bc prior to the dispute, I had CO reported monthly in the payment history from when it CO'd in 2016 all the way until I PIF 6/2019.

So what it looks like now is, after the update, it looks like the account became current and PIF in 2016. They took out all the CO in the monthly history and in turn made it look like it happened 3 years earlier now. Am I wrong???

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:28:10 GMT

Yes, I completely understand that could of happened by disputing it. They were reporting CO every single month in the payment history until I PIF 6/2019.

I disputed bc it looked like I PIF 6 months ago, when in reality, it was brought to $0 a year ago. Luckily it didn't update and bring the CO current.

Take a look at my reply above. Now, it looks like I brought it current $0 in 2016 now. Am I wrong???

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Remedios — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:32:08 GMT

You are wrong. Those X does not mean current, it means "No data", as in nothing reported.

COs typically report for years until they are satisfied or sold. You paid, it stopped reporting.

Because of your dispute, everything past the delinquency that lead to CO is removed.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but nothing ground shattering happened here.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:50:48 GMT

I'm sorry, i didn't explain that correctly. It was reporting monthly CO all the way thru 12/2019. They were reporting negative info after it was PIF 6/2019.

I disputed so they would correct that, and make it so the last CO reported 6/2019 like it should have. Before the dispute, it was reported CO in the history every month since 11/2016 when it was initially charged off.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:52:29 GMT

So now, with the results, they effectively brought it PIF current back to the initial CO date. So now it looks like I made it current back then, and not when I really did 6/2019.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 18:47:23 GMT

That account reporting is a mess now. It shows your last payment as being in the middle of the delinquency but then says the charge off is paid in full. It's pretty much impossible to figure out what happened with that account now.

Of course the only thing that actually matters is that it was charged off. That is going to always be the case until it falls off in 2023.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

RobertEG — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 22:22:08 GMT

A creditor reports, once a CO has been taken, the fact of the CO and the original amount of the delinquent debt at time they took the charge-off. That remains as a sticky post regardless of whether CO is also reported in the payment history profile or the current status.

The CRA reporting manual provides a creditor with the option, when reporting either current status or reporting payment history profile, as showing the delinquency level either as the number of days late (e.g., 30/60/9-/120-days late), OR alternately, if the account has also been charged-off, simply as CO. The days late is then computed from the reported DOFD.

The creditor was previously reporting a CO under payment history profile for those prior months after which the account was both delinquent AND was charged-off. After the dispute, they chose to change the payment history profile reporting to use only the days late format, with progressive delinquencies of 30-late in 2/2016 up to 120-late 6/2016.

That only removed use of CO under the payment history profile, but did not remove their separate reporting of the original amount of the CO, and their reporting of current status as Paid, was a charge-off. That is consistent.

Their reporting that they took a CO is estimated to be removed at 7 years from DOFD, which is stated to be 02/2023.

That is consistent with the separate reporting of a 30-late in 02/2016.

It all now looks clear and proper.....

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 22:46:45 GMT

Much appreciated Robert, thanks for that explanation. I started receiving "Improved account" alerts from numerous monitoring sites, and when I got it from Experian, I said let me look into this.

Deletion date is set for 2/2023. I lcuked out with EQ, since they just removed it. I can live with it for another 2 years or so.

Thanks

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 01:32:54 GMT

I had a webbank/fungerhut account and I had a CRA try and "fix" it (aapparently by blasting it with disputes) and it totally messed up the reporting. Instead of it falling off at the 7 years after DoFD, it is now a "paid as agreed" account and sticking around until at least 10 years after the last "update". I steer clear from disputing after the CRA made a huge mess of several of my accounts. They all should have dropped off years ago! Now I have a few years left to wait, but thankfull at this point they "look" like positive accounts since all of the lates have aged off and has the "paid as agreed" annotation.

Any way, it does not look like it was removed. I had the same thing, gone off 1 or 2 of the 3Bs, but not all. Found out any additional efforts made it worse each time. They won't doing somethung just because another bureau did.

Good luck!

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 03:51:38 GMT

@Dmessina666 wrote:
I'm sorry, i didn't explain that correctly. It was reporting monthly CO all the way thru 12/2019. They were reporting negative info after it was PIF 6/2019.

I disputed so they would correct that, and make it so the last CO reported 6/2019 like it should have. Before the dispute, it was reported CO in the history every month since 11/2016 when it was initially charged off.

@Dmessina666 I'm not quite sure you understand and I have a couple questions too, if you would oblige.

How many days late you are is not calculated from the payment history graph that you're looking at that you had the COs removed from. True enough it looks better for somebody looking at it from a manual review perspective. But the algorithm calculates from the DOFD to the date it is paid to get TPOD (total period of delinquency).

So the algorithm knows exactly how many days you were late regardless of the graph. That's what @RobertEG was telling us I believe.

I believe the reason your score was not dinged for an update is because it was already marked paid (with date) and since the algorithm knows when it was paid, it knows the TPOD. Your dispute may have change the last date of update, but it did not change your TPOD.

So in reality you were about three years late. That would be your TPOD, however many days that is. And because that did not change (it became frozen at the time it was PIF) as a result of updating, your score did not change.

Now had it been unpaid and not regularly updating, then an update would've caused it to increase TPOD dinging your score. But, because it's already paid, I posit that that's why there was no ding.

My questions, can you please confirm there was no point loss? And it would be lovely to see the data fields from a free annualcreditreport.com pull, If you if you would not mind.

@TheKid2

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Dmessina666 — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:23:05 GMT

There was no point loss, but in fact a 5 point gain on EX, and 1 point on TU that accompanied that alert.

I understand for the most part your explanation. What I don't understand is why I received "improved account" alerts almost across the board (CK, RocketHQ, Credit Journey, Nerdwallet)

Did something actually improve? Now, should I just leave it be and let it fall on its own in a couple years? It's a mess now, like someone stated above. Does it not matter like you said bc it was already paid previously and CO'd?

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 10:53:39 GMT

@Dmessina666No it doesn’t matter, unless you can get it removed entirely. Once you pay a charge off it is finalized and does not continue to suppress your scores. The damage that is done (even by the payoff if applicable) remains, but it doesn’t get worse.

The reason all those sites told you improved account is because, just like you, they look at the graph. Unfortunately for you, the fico algorithm does not look at the graph.

Nothing improved and that tiny score shift was probably from something else.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

TheKid2 — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:19:15 GMT

@Dmessina666 wrote:
There was no point loss, but in fact a 5 point gain on EX, and 1 point on TU that accompanied that alert.

I understand for the most part your explanation. What I don't understand is why I received "improved account" alerts almost across the board (CK, RocketHQ, Credit Journey, Nerdwallet)

Did something actually improve? Now, should I just leave it be and let it fall on its own in a couple years? It's a mess now, like someone stated above. Does it not matter like you said bc it was already paid previously and CO'd?

@Anonymous - back me up on this thinking please

I think the blame here resides with the CMS and how they characterize the change they detected. Keep in mind, what the alert says it NOT what the FICO algo is reading. It's the CMS interpretation only. When I settled COs I saw various alerts, many times what you saw "Improved account", other times I saw EX say it was "New Acount" when the CO was updated to settled - I think because they wiped away all the payment history. In all cases I saw a score increase because they were actively reporting a CO every month and that finally stopped. I think it is very clear that when a new CO is added to payment history every month there is extra suppression to the scores.

So, in summary, I think we can ignore what the CMS alert says and just think in terms what the FICO algo sees. In this case, the algo is seeing that the debt is satisfied, you don't owe it anymore, and in the case of a CO the TPOD has stopped growing.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:52:40 GMT

@TheKid2 wrote:
@Dmessina666 wrote:
There was no point loss, but in fact a 5 point gain on EX, and 1 point on TU that accompanied that alert.

I understand for the most part your explanation. What I don't understand is why I received "improved account" alerts almost across the board (CK, RocketHQ, Credit Journey, Nerdwallet)

Did something actually improve? Now, should I just leave it be and let it fall on its own in a couple years? It's a mess now, like someone stated above. Does it not matter like you said bc it was already paid previously and CO'd?
@Anonymous - back me up on this thinking please

I think the blame here resides with the CMS and how they characterize the change they detected. Keep in mind, what the alert says it NOT what the FICO algo is reading. It's the CMS interpretation only. When I settled COs I saw various alerts, many times what you saw "Improved account", other times I saw EX say it was "New Acount" when the CO was updated to settled - I think because they wiped away all the payment history. In all cases I saw a score increase because they were actively reporting a CO every month and that finally stopped. I think it is very clear that when a new CO is added to payment history every month there is extra suppression to the scores.

So, in summary, I think we can ignore what the CMS alert says and just think in terms what the FICO algo sees. In this case, the algo is seeing that the debt is satisfied, you don't owe it anymore, and in the case of a CO the TPOD has stopped growing.

@TheKid2 yes, absolutely correct, that's exactly my line of thinking. With one qualifier, when a new CO is added, yes, there is continual suppression to the scores as long as it's being continually updated.

as a matter of fact you're very correct for a whole bunch of things on the CMS frontends that we call fluff because it's their interpretation of data and it's not the algorithms interpretation, so if you follow it you're going to be misled many times, when the CMS got it wrong, which is often.

The only things that are absolute reference are negative reason codes and score changes.

Re: Did they remove the CO???

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 15:55:15 GMT

I edited the last post, but I have something else to say in addition. You’ve got to keep in mind that everything you see on the CMS frontend is the CMS's interpretation of the data from the CR, except for the score and the negative reason codes which are generated directly from the algorithm.