rjf78 wrote:
Is it worth trying to gw an old paid co account if they are going to delete the whole thing and it is one of your longer accounts. My scores are 708, 695, and 688. I want the co off but, could the account history maybe be helping my credit more than the co is hurting it? dofd is 11/03 so falling off in 2 and a half years. Advice?
It could be helping you. You'd have to do some figuring, but you'd take all of your accounts that are reporting (excluding collections or judgments) and calculate the age of every account listed. Average that age and compare that avg. to the age of the account in question. If the CO is older than the avg., then leave it alone. If newer, remove that account and see by how much your avg. age changes. I notice that FICO give you a score bump for every year that passes for the avg. age on your report. If the age reduces by a whole number, then I'd hold off. Confusing? Me too.
Another factor that could hurt your score is based on how it is reporting. You may see some old lates and it may say CO, but on the FICO reports look for the box that says "Worst Delinquency". If that box says something like "90+ days late" or "120+ days late" then you could be taking a significant hit on your score.
You can GW any account. It doesn't mean they will delete, but it means they'll update, if you ask, to a status that you're asking for (e.g changing "CO" to "pays as agreed").
