@DR527 wrote:
Ok, I guess I'm more confused now. A paid off account from 2017. Even one that had late payments on it. Would have nearly no effect on your current scores(single digits worth of points possibly). I believe you said was in the mid 600's. It sound like something is missing. I honestly wouldn't mess with that account. Even if it's inaccurate, let the late fall off next year.
I know Navy Federal can be kind of hot and cold. They have they're own internal score they love to use. You can find it if you look on the denial letter. If that's your only late payment, and your utilization is good. I'd give it 60 days see what happens.
I cannot agree. My FICO 8 on TU went up by 33 points when I did EE and got a couple of old 30 day lates removed, with no other changes at that time. It was 2 30 day lates showing on an old paid off car loan. The lates were removed through EE which means they were 6.5 years old. And they had that much effect when removed. I'm now knocking on the door of 700 FICO's because of that.
Here's the thing, if there are more collections or past due accounts that are unpaid, that's likely causing a large chunk of the issue IMHO. Having a 30 day late payment on its own from 6 years ago should not cause a denial of credit, there must be more damage than that happening on the reports.
OP said two things that stood out. First was that he had not had any late payments in nearly a year. These are still fresh and underwriters pay attention to that. Second, all but one charge-off paid to zero. This means OP still has an unpaid charge-off on their reports. That's also causing damage.
Underwriters look for signs that the consumer will pay their bills. If you have an unpaid charge-off and then you started getting late pays less than a year ago, that is a potential red flag that you might repeat your history--the charge-offs I mean. And things like Covid certainly did not help the credit game for anyone who's in this kind of position.
Here's a comparison, this is my situation. FICO 8's were in the mid-600s last year, we bought a 2020 Durango. Cap One approved, no money down, purchase price approved up to $60K, and 4% interest on a used vehicle. You mentioned that you had to put down 20% on your car loan. That remaining charge-off and other lates are not helping, for sure. At the time we made this purchase, the only negatives I had were the couple of 30 day lates that I just got removed last month. I know that other factors play a part like employment, income, other debts, etc, but that's just a basic comparison.
Best recommendation would be to pay that remaining charge-off...an unpaid charge-off keeps updating and hurts your scores more than a simple late pay does. Once you get that paid it will no longer update as unpaid, and its effect on your scores will be less. Then, when early exclusion time comes, just ask for their removal and you should be good. The more recent late pays, you might try goodwill letters, though there's no guarantee on those. Even so, if all you had was a late pay or two, and you've paid current since then, you should be fine.
