Settlement for CC reporting question

[greenthumb2020]

Hi folks,

Long story short, I accepted a settlement through a CA for 50% on a CC that I stopped paying on in mid-2019. The account was reported as charged off and there was/is no collections account. I called and spoke to the original creditor several times to make sure the CA did their part and everything would be applied correctly. The creditor received the amount of the settlement and the balance on that account was shown as reducing the overall balance on the account shortly thereafter. All three FICO scores increased. I called the creditor once again to see if they could confirm the settlement amount paid would update the account to paid and asked for a mid-cycle update. They confirmed and said they would request that the proper team push an update. Once again TU and EX saw an increase of a few more points, but this time EQ dropped a substantial number of points.

EQ showed two alerts, one showing the balance decreasing by the remainder of the CC balance after the settlement was applied (to $0), and a another saying the account had been updated that shows:

Past due: not reported

Status: Bad debt; Placed for collection;

Last activity: 3/01/2019

Description: Charged off account Credit Card Amount in high credit is original charge-off amount > Account paid for less than full balance

Paid charge off

Experian, on the other hand, has an update that simply says amount: $0 and status: Reached an agreement with a lender to repay only part of the original debt. I had a 3B report pending, so I pulled the trigger on that after the three bureaus showed activity.

For that account...

EQ

Payment status: charge-off

Worst delinquency: Bad debt/collection

TU

Payment status: Payment after charge off/collection

Worst delinquency: none reported

EX

Payment status: charge off/other derog

Worst delinquency: Account legally paid in full for less than the full balance

In payment history, EQ has shown "CO" since fall 2019 while TU shows "NR" across the board and EX showing "OK" since fall 2019 with a "CO" showing for January 2021.

After speaking with a supervisor with the creditor, he suggested filing a fispute with EQ because it didn't make sense to him, either.

With all of that being said, is this valid, or worth a dispute? TIA.

[AndySoCal]

I do not see anything wrong with the Equifax reporting. The Bad debt usually means chargeoff.  Experian and Equifax if memory is correct reports the charge off date Trans Union does not.  Equifax is reporting the account as a charge off that has been paid (settlement) for less than the full balance. What is it you think is not correct?

[greenthumb2020]

Thanks for the response, @AndySoCal. As I mentioned, the two other scores saw pretty decent increases compared to a ~20 point decrease on my EQ score. With EQ showing the proper reporting since the month it was initially charged off, I'm surprised at the negative hit I took.

Something I forgot to mention in the initial post is that the payment history section of insights on the dashboard shows "0 months" as my time since most recent late payment (and shows "1" late payments 30+ days in past year) while the other two show accurate periods of time.

Something just doesn't seem to add up with the way EQ is reporting this update to this specific account - at least to me.

[AndySoCal]

@greenthumb2020 

If you would not mind could you post the trade line as Equifax is reporting it and any one of the other two bureaus for contrast.

Blot out the account number or personal identifiable information if you do decide to post.

[greenthumb2020]

@AndySoCal 

Does this help?

Payment history for 2019:

EX: NR, OK, OK, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, OK OK OK

TU: NR all year

EQ: OK, OK, OK, 30, 60, 90, 120, 120, 120, CO, CO

2020:

EX: OK all year

TU: NR all year

EQ: CO all year

2021:

EX is the only one showing any data with a CO for January and the other two showing NR.

	EQ	TU	EX
	01/2021	01/2021	01/2021
	Charge-off	Payment after charge off/collection	Account legally paid in full for less than the full balance
	Bad debt/collection	None Reported	Charge Off/Other Derog
	$0	$0	–
	$4,000	$4,000	$4,000
	04/2019	–	04/2019
	05/2019	–	05/2019
	12/2020, 11/2020, 10/2020, 09/2020, 08/2020, 07/2020, 06/2020, 05/2020, 04/2020, 03/2020, 02/2020, 01/2020, 12/2019, 11/2019, 10/2019, 09/2019, 08/2019, 07/2019, 06/2019	–	01/2021, 09/2019, 08/2019, 07/2019, 06/2019
Closed Date	–	04/24/2019	–
Open Date	04/2015	04/2015	04/2015
Last Activity	03/2019	12/2020	–
Terms	–	–	Revolving
Scheduled Payment	–	–	–
High Balance	–	$0	–
Loan Type	Credit Card	Credit Card	Credit Card
Responsibility	Individual	Individual Account	Individual
Comments	Account paid for less than full balance Paid charge off	Settled-less than full balance	Account Paid In Full For Less Than The Full Balance

[AndySoCal]

@greenthumb2020   As reported all three bureaus are not perfect in their reporting.

Trans Union is reporting the last activity as 12/2020 is the when you paid the collection agency ?

 If so Equifax is not reporting when you paid the account off.  If 12/2020 is when you paid it off (settled)  then the 12/2020 late payment date is not correct.  The last activity should be 12/2020  for Equifax. It appears that the creditor charged the account off between 10/2019 and 12/2019 by a combination of Equifax and Experian reporting. If you paid the acocunt off in 12/2020 I do not know what Experian is reporting in 01/2021 as a late payment.

Basicallly, all three bureaus are reporting the account is a chargeoff that was paid by the settling the account for less full balance.

All that said do I think that there is enough of a reason to dispute the imperfections. No I do not. In my opinion the corrections most likely will not improve the score any.  My concern is if you dispute it what will the "updated" trade line look like will it be better or worse.  There is not enough upside to the dispute to make it worth the effort in my opinion.

[greenthumb2020]

Thanks again for your help and taking the time to look through this info, @AndySoCal.

I've spent quite a bit of time surfing this forum over the years initially building my credit and learning how scoring works before things went a bit south, so my focus is on rebuilding at this point. I didn't think what was being shown made sense, so I'm glad you were able to confirm that something (or a few things) were off. I did settle this in December.

I had two other settlements update along with a score increase about two months before this settlement, so I was pretty bummed when this came about. That said, I am in the rebuilding stage right now, and a ~20 point decrease definitely doesn't help - and the new (incorrect) late payment could pose a problem in the not too distant future - so I might ultimately pursue a dispute with EQ. As you mentioned, I don't know if it makes sense to attempt to correct the other two bureaus.