@Anonymous wrote:
One of the worst things I did was paying off all My debt making it current which just took money out of my pocket and lowered my score. Zero benefit. I’ve heard that anything over 24 months you should just ignore and not pay, but I’m not sure if that’s sound advice.
No, it's not sound advice at all & please don't share it further. You should learn & understand how FICO scoring works before publically making such blanket statements. While in some cases, paying your derogatory accounts can hurt scores initially due to newly updating a negative account, doing so will be of great benefit for the longer-term - and for reasons beyond your credit scores.
@thornback wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
One of the worst things I did was paying off all My debt making it current which just took money out of my pocket and lowered my score. Zero benefit. I’ve heard that anything over 24 months you should just ignore and not pay, but I’m not sure if that’s sound advice.No, it's not sound advice at all & please don't share it further. You should learn & understand how FICO scoring works before publically making such blanket statements. While in some cases, paying your derogatory accounts can hurt scores initially due to newly updating a negative account, doing so will be of great benefit for the longer-term - and for reasons beyond your credit scores.
@thornbackexplained the same thing here https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/2-accounts-left/td-p/5857923/page/2
on the same more than 2yrs statement after you questioned me. Were not perfect here. We do make a boo boos once in a while. Wherever you read that and posted it in 2 threads on 2 sub-forums. It isnt "sound advice" as others have said. We try to be 100% accurate on how we answer topics and dont want to mislead anyone. Credit is a serious thing. One wrong move can cost someone dearly in most cases 7 yrs. Like thornback said. Read some more and learn how things work and then you can help others with feedback. 
@FireMedic1 wrote:
@thornback wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
One of the worst things I did was paying off all My debt making it current which just took money out of my pocket and lowered my score. Zero benefit. I’ve heard that anything over 24 months you should just ignore and not pay, but I’m not sure if that’s sound advice.No, it's not sound advice at all & please don't share it further. You should learn & understand how FICO scoring works before publically making such blanket statements. While in some cases, paying your derogatory accounts can hurt scores initially due to newly updating a negative account, doing so will be of great benefit for the longer-term - and for reasons beyond your credit scores.
@thornbackexplained the same thing here https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/2-accounts-left/td-p/5857923/page/2
on the same more than 2yrs statement after you questioned me. Were not perfect here. We do make a boo boos once in a while. Wherever you read that and posted it in 2 threads on 2 sub-forums. It isnt "sound advice" as others have said. We try to be 100% accurate on how we answer topics and dont want to mislead anyone. Credit is a serious thing. One wrong move can cost someone dearly in most cases 7 yrs. Like thornback said. Read some more and learn how things work and then you can help others with feedback.
I should give more of a backstory but I don't want to hijack the thread. Paying off that debt wreked me. I had about $20k worth of old debt racked up from when I was 18 that was basically ignored until I was 23-24. I was in the process of shopping for a house and my score was 722. I was approved for the house. While I was away doing army stuff I asked my girlfriend to work with our loan guy and get a good rate. He advised she take $20k out of my savings and pay off all the 5-6 year old debt. Which brought me down to a 620, no longer qualified for FHA loan. Had to get family to co-sign in order to buy the house. If I would have just ignored the debt things would have been better as it would have just fallen off after 7 years.
@Anonymous wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:
@thornback wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
One of the worst things I did was paying off all My debt making it current which just took money out of my pocket and lowered my score. Zero benefit. I’ve heard that anything over 24 months you should just ignore and not pay, but I’m not sure if that’s sound advice.No, it's not sound advice at all & please don't share it further. You should learn & understand how FICO scoring works before publically making such blanket statements. While in some cases, paying your derogatory accounts can hurt scores initially due to newly updating a negative account, doing so will be of great benefit for the longer-term - and for reasons beyond your credit scores.
@thornbackexplained the same thing here https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/2-accounts-left/td-p/5857923/page/2
on the same more than 2yrs statement after you questioned me. Were not perfect here. We do make a boo boos once in a while. Wherever you read that and posted it in 2 threads on 2 sub-forums. It isnt "sound advice" as others have said. We try to be 100% accurate on how we answer topics and dont want to mislead anyone. Credit is a serious thing. One wrong move can cost someone dearly in most cases 7 yrs. Like thornback said. Read some more and learn how things work and then you can help others with feedback.
I should give more of a backstory but I don't want to hijack the thread. Paying off that debt wreked me. I had about $20k worth of old debt racked up from when I was 18 that was basically ignored until I was 23-24. I was in the process of shopping for a house and my score was 722. I was approved for the house. While I was away doing army stuff I asked my girlfriend to work with our loan guy and get a good rate. He advised she take $20k out of my savings and pay off all the 5-6 year old debt. Which brought me down to a 620, no longer qualified for FHA loan. Had to get family to co-sign in order to buy the house. If I would have just ignored the debt things would have been better as it would have just fallen off after 7 years.
Understandable but that does not mean that one should ignore debts that are older than 2 years -- not just because of your credit, but because of the possibility of a lender filing suit, obtaining a judgment, garnishing wages, etc. Credit advice needs to be case-specific more often than not - so you should not offer that advice in general.
In your very specific case -- I/we would have likely advised you to either pursue PFDs or wait for the debt to fall off (since all were likely outside of SOL) and then pursue the mortgage after the fact. Generally, a mortgage lender would not have been able to approve you with outstanding debt -- they will almost always tell you to pay everything outstanding. The lender was not giving you bad advice --he was advising you of what you would need to do to get approved. Unfortunately, the affect such action will have on your scores is sometimes unpredictable.
Also - Keep in mind -- waiting for the debts to simply fall off at the 7 year mark could've resulted in a drop in score as well -- especially if some of your oldest accounts would have been removed as a result. Removal of derogatories do not always yield score increases (I am a recent testament to this).