It's not that Vantage (CK) scores aren't accurate; it's a completely separate scoring model that behaves and responds (wildly) to changes differently th an FICO. Very few lenders (we only know of one, I believe - Synchrony) use Vantage to make credit decisions, the vast majority use some version of FICO.
While rebuilding, you should be monitoring your FICO scores - save yourself from the stress of Vantage. You can sign up for Experians $1 trial to get all 3 FICO scores so you know where you actually stand - just be sure to cancel before the trial ends if you don't want the monthly service.
Paying a collection is a good thing. Sometimes though, if 5he collection hasn't updated in a while and suddenly updates with a change (your pay off) it can affect scores negatively - temporarily - because it's a new update to a negative tradeline. Scores rebound quickly from this because there will be no future updates to the account and the tradeline will be able to age.
Have you tried to have the collection completely removed?
Because this is a FICO centered forum, there aren't enough datapoints or studies to understand how VantageScores will react to certain actions. What we do know, is that they have certain distinctions such as not factoring closed accounts into AAoA and that they rely heavily on trended data.
While paying off a collection is a good thing, VantageScore's algorithm may say, "if person is aa years old, with $bbbb in collections over cc number of collections, and has carried those collections for dd years, paying off $eee and closing f number of collections results in a 95% chance they will apply for 5 new accounts within 180 days, reduce score by 115 points." The algorithm might also say, "if person has not applied for new credit in 30 days since reducing collections by $eee and f number of accounts, the chance of applying for 5 new accounts in 180 days is reduced by 60%, add 60 points."
People think that VantageScore is random, but it's not, it's predicting your future actions based on what you're doing now and what you've done in the past as well as the actions of others with similar profiles. FICO does the same thing, but isn't as volatile because it isn't as reliant on years of trended data. I suspect when the new FICO comes out we may see an increase in volatility due to the heavier integration of trended data similar to what VantageScore uses.
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:Because this is a FICO centered forum, there aren't enough datapoints or studies to understand how VantageScores will react to certain actions. What we do know, is that they have certain distinctions such as not factoring closed accounts into AAoA and that they rely heavily on trended data.
The closed acconts isn't proven I didn't think, that's just Credit Karma's awkward interface not reference of anything.
VS 3 which we're talking about here (Credit Karma) doesn't use trended data, VS4 does according to marketing literature but I haven't seen anywhere to get it.
It's a messy subject.
