ReBucket?

[Anonymous]

Got a ScoreWatch alert that said my score had gone down. I checked it out and sure enough it had dropped 22 points! I printed out my report thinking I would find some diabolical or insidious fiend reporting bogus information. Instead I found 1 less 30 day late reporting and the last, I said the LAST, CA gone from my report!

Could I have been rebucketed? The only baddie I have left, aside from 3 very old thirty day lates, is a 6 year old charge off. If it is a rebucket, I will consider myself graduated. The points lost will return shortly as my new accounts age and my 5 inquiries cease being factored in June.

CB

[llecs]

IMO, I don't think you could have been rebucketed if the CO is still reporting. However, take a peek at the CO. Look for the comments. If it reads as "disputed" due to GW letters, PFDs, or whatever, it likely isn't factored into scoring. One tell-tale sign is to look at the first page of your FICO report. Your payment history would likely would have gone to "great".

Anything else change? New TLs w/ a balance? New TLs reporting? Change in util?

Congrats.

[Anonymous]

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@llecs wrote:

IMO, I don't think you could have been rebucketed if the CO is still reporting. However, take a peek at the CO. Look for the comments. If it reads as "disputed" due to GW letters, PFDs, or whatever, it likely isn't factored into scoring. One tell-tale sign is to look at the first page of your FICO report. Your payment history would likely would have gone to "great". Still Just "Good" Just kidding "Good" is great! In June it was "Bad". Lots of progress made since then.

Anything else change? New TLs w/ a balance?  No. New TLs reporting? No Change in util? Down to < 5% only 1 TL reporting a balance.

Congrats.

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Found it! Both the 698 score report and the new 676 report list 1 serious delinquency (First Premier). The 698 didn't list the "You have multiple accounts showing missed payments..." on the Understanding Your Fico Score page. Although the accounts still show up and they are not listed as disputed. They look exactly the same except that 1 30 day late has aged off of my AmeriCredit TL.

The 698 score report totally missed the old 30 day lates showing on my AmeriCredit account. Under the 698 What's Helping page the most recent late pay was 5 yrs 2 mo ago. On the 676 report it is 3 yrs 5 mo, which is accurate. I never disputed AmeriCredit and it is not listed as such.

Must have been a glitch.

Too stoked about the last CA going Bye Bye to let this get me down. All I have left now is the 1st Premier CO and they will receive my undivided attention.

Heartfelt "thanks" again to everyone for all your help.

CB

Message Edited by charliebrown1370 on 11-10-2009 06:10 AM

[Anonymous]

i'm googling the term now, found nothing yet.  what is this rebucket?   1st i've heard of it. i have ZERO idea what it is

[MarineVietVet]

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@Anonymous wrote:
i'm googling the term now, found nothing yet.  what is this rebucket?   1st i've heard of it. i have ZERO idea what it is

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Go to the top of this page and do a search for "rebucket". You'll get lots of information.

[Anonymous]

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
i'm googling the term now, found nothing yet.  what is this rebucket?   1st i've heard of it. i have ZERO idea what it is

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Go to the top of this page and do a search for "rebucket". You'll get lots of information.

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True but not the answer itself, you just get a bunch of threads where the term shows up but no definition. Wouldn't it have just been easier to say it? Still trying to find it myself...

[Lel]

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BBQGlazedSeabass wrote:

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
i'm googling the term now, found nothing yet.  what is this rebucket?   1st i've heard of it. i have ZERO idea what it is

---

Go to the top of this page and do a search for "rebucket". You'll get lots of information.

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True but not the answer itself, you just get a bunch of threads where the term shows up but no definition. Wouldn't it have just been easier to say it? Still trying to find it myself...

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Frankly, no.  Rebucketing cannot be easily defined in a few words.  I'll see if I can come up with a reasonable concise explanation (famous last words....)

The FICO scoring formula doesn't just take your information - credit card accounts, student loans, mortgages, collections, etc. - in isolation to calculate your credit score.  It also attempts to classify people according to general categories (the so-called buckets), and to generate a score based on how one's credit profile might compare to others within the same category.

What exactly constitutes a bucket is a bit nebulous.  Some buckets are defined by length of credit history - other members have reported having inexplicable changes in score when their average account age goes from 6 years to 7 years.  Other buckets relate to the presence or absence of certain types of derogatory information.  For example, when a collection account drops off, a person might move from the "collections bucket" to the "no collections bucket".   Another probable bucket is for person who have mortgages, as opposed to those who don't.

Basically, the point of having scoring buckets is to try compare persons to others who are in similar circumstances, because it's not accurate or fair to score any individual against the entire borrower population.  Here's an analogy.  I'm a decent soccer player (or I used to be, before my knees started going bad).  It's not fair for someone to look at me and say, "hey, Lel, you're really lousy.  Carlos Valderrama and Landon Donovan would school you on the pitch."  I'm not in their soccer bucket.  But put me up against any other aging guy with orthopaedic issues, and I'll hold my own.

So the FICO score takes into account that people and their credit profiles are different, sometimes vastly different.  Your score will be based on how you compare to those with similar files.  Obviously, the scores for some buckets are going to be limited (e.g. the most creditworthy person in a recent foreclosure bucket is not going to have an 800 FICO), but at least that person is not going to be saddled with a sub-500 score forever because he is not being directly compared to those without foreclosure on their records.

Clear as mud, right?  

[laz98]

definitely clear as mud.

[haulingthescoreup]

lol

I think of it as being similar to different classrooms at school that are divided up by ability and past grades.

If you had a terrible time with multiplication, it would be pretty depressing to be put in a class with those who were doing long division on the back of envelopes at age 3. All your homework papers would be returned with red ink scrawls all over them (purple ink, if your teacher thinks that red ink hurts your self-esteem.) You would continually have among the lowest grades in the class, as in D's and F's.

But if you were put in a different class with 24 other kids who are also baffled by multiplication, AND if you went home and memorized your times tables and did extra homework, and finally, one day the light bulb went on and you understood multiplication, you would shine in that class, and you'd probably have A's.

But you can't remain the big fish in the small pond forever, and eventually, you'd be regrouped with other students --maybe not the long division champs, but definitely not those who just can't do times-7's. You'd wind up with those who like you are doing better at math --so your brief reign as king/ queen of 4th grade math would be over. You might be back to getting B's again. At that point, it would be time to swallow hard and take on division, and possibly even fractions, so that once again, you'd start doing better than many or most of your classmates. You'd start getting A's again, and next thing you know, you're assigned to algebra, and you're staring at trains leaving different cities on the same track, and figuring when they collide.

Score buckets are like ability-grouped classrooms. If you have a major delinquency (90+ day late, charge-off, collection, etc.), you're lumped in with others with the same thing. If you have a major delinq AND a public record, you're lumped in with those folks. Same for credit less than two years old, credit from 13-19 years old (these numbers are stabs in the dark, btw), and so forth.

As your credit reports/ profile improves, you are "promoted" to the next group of consumers similar to you, aka a score bucket. When this happens, we call it "re-bucketing." This is a very informal term, btw, and as I understand, it sends the FICO score developers into gales of hysterical laughter. But at any rate, your competition might be a bit tougher, and if so, your scores might drop until you catch up with your new peers.

Re-bucketing doesn't always result in score drops, by any means. If all you have is one serious derog, and your history is long(-ish) and your util is low, and everything else is good, your scores might immediately jump. We've had members report this when their last collection falls off, for instance.