@Anonymous wrote:
FICOdeMIno - Baddies don't age - they stay there and rot. My baddies are all 6+ years old and are sitting on my credit file like a pile of cow manure lies on the ground. In the mean time I opened a new Credit Card a couple of months ago, less than 10% utilization and my scores have increased just a couple of points. All my baddies age off by June 2017, so please don't tell people it takes 2 years - it takes the full 7 years PLUS some. Paying off debt actually LOWERS scores - I lost 40 points when I paid off my mortgage.
Hi Flyingifr,
Never said it takes two years, I said it takes time to age- like wine ages. That means a while... lol... You're right though they will stay on your credit report for approximately 7 years plus a little bit. You are right thought that paying debt off does acutally lower you score, but under a manual review they always look good- especially more so if there are no lates or anything like that with the specific credit line. The drop can be a significant one when you factor in a large amount like a mortgage. You can often regain some points if you take out another type of installment loan such as personal secure loan line of credit. Then you could do a loan of say $500, within a week or so of opening the account, pay it down to next to nothing, and then not pay again until the loan period is almost up. That way you've freed up the majority of the $500, and making very very minimal payments until that 5 or 6 years is up. Many people have did that here on the forums. I am hopefull to pay off my mortgage, but at the same time I know my score will drop and then I'll use that trick in that point in time- unless the rules have changed at which point I will just deal with it then.
Here in USA they want us to be in debt no doubt because it makes the credit lendors so much money.
Scores are like a double edged sword. Too much credit can cause problems, and too little credit can do the same thing.
