Error, or just normal

[Anonymous]

I am brand new here, just got my fico score, and it is pretty good, I have 2 strikes against me 1 is short credit history, which only time will remedy, the other is it says I have high credit usage, however, I looked into the accounts (I have 2 CC's), one of them reports my balance from last month and is accurate, the other reports my balance from last December, when admittedly it was high because of holidays, etc. I have since completely paid off that CC, and in running the simulations if the credit report were accurate, I would have a FICO > 800 and would qualify for the lowest possible mortgage rate.

I am shopping for a home, and would really like to save the .25 or so percent.

My question is, is it normal for the balance reporting to be 3-4 months behind, and will it sort itself out shortly? Or is this an error I should try to address somehow? I am not looking to purchase the home immediately, and am not in a rush, so if it will automatically go away in 1-2 months, that is fine, I just wondered why one seemed up to date and the other isn't.

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, pavera, welcome to the forums!

You actually have three FICO scores, one from Equifax (EQ), one from TransUnion (TU), and one from Experian (EX.) I'm guessing that you pulled your EQ score through ScoreWatch, or possibly your TU score through the Quarterly Monitoring product.

Every now and then, one of the CRA's (credit reporting agencies; credit bureaus) goes into some sort of funk and doesn't update anything at all. This seems to be a problem especially with TU, which can get months behind.

But at the same time, the CCC's (credit card companies) themselves also get sloppy about reporting. When you put the two together, you can find yourself pulling your hair out.

It should fix itself eventually, but if you get down to the wire at mortgage time, you might have to dispute the balances with whichever CRA is behind. On the other hand, if the same account is late on all three reports, and all the other scores are reasonably current, then it's probably the fault of the creditor, and you'll need to get on the phone with them. Good luck, and hope that helps.