Capital One Goodwill Success (kind of?)

[Alucard]

So I sent a goodwill letter to capital one and when the specialist reached out to me she advised that they would not be able to make any adjustments, however she strongly implied that if I disputed the item with the CRA's it would come back in my favor (and it did, within 24 hours the item was deleted). 

what I'm scratching my head about is I then got a notification from Experian that the item was deleted and that I dropped 10 points.....

to give some context, about 6 years ago I defaulted on a credit card and stayed behind for about 8 months but didn't let it charge off. I was able to get current but then the card was closed. I thought a goodwill letter would be ideal since I have been declined in the past for "missed payments" (this is the only negative item regarding payment history) so I thought it would be a plus add to have it removed.

[thornback]

Congrats on the removal - sorry for the score decrease.   

How did the removal of this account affect you average age of accounts (AAoA)?  You'd have to do the math, but it's possible the loss of this account reduced your AAoA below a scoring threshold resulting in a loss of points - this loss could have exceeded the number of points gained from removing aged, late payment notations, leaving you with a 10 point deficit..

If these late payments were your only negatives, it's possible that you have experienced a scorecard reassignment (rebucketing) - from a tarnished scorecard to a clean scorecard.  This can also sometimes result in a score drop. 

I'm, of course, just guessing here as I do not know the details of your profile but these are two possibilities and one or both may have occurred. 

[Alucard]

This is great information, thank you!

[thornback]

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@Alucard wrote:

This is great information, thank you!

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You're welcome. After I posted, I realized that you did say these were your only negatives - so you definitely experienced a scorecard reassignment.  The loss of age may also be partly responsible - so a double whammy.

Don't fret - scores climb higher and faster on clean scorecards - you'll have those points back in no time - just be patient.  Besides, it's better to have a clean report with slightly lower scores than a dirty report with higher scores any day. So congrats again and enjoy the win🏆 

[donkort]

Yep.....I kept on getting rejected constantly even with 660s and 670s scores back 3 or more years ago.   This was probably caused by the sheer quantity of my debt.

And people with low 600s scores who I knew kept on getting approved.