@Anonymous wrote:Hello PrinceC. Yes. It is almost certainly hurting your account. The consensus on the forum appears to be that CFAs continue to hurt your score after they are closed. Since closed accounts often remain on your report for ten years after they are closed, that's ten years of harm in addition to the time it stays open.
I don't think anyone has shown for sure the the harm done by a closed CFA is exactly the same as that done by an open CFA, so you might get some benefit by paying it off.
Here's my advice:
Inspect the reason codes associated with all of your scores. These are the (typically four) reasons listed next to your score that FICO identifies as hurting it. If consumer finance account is not listed, then for some odd reason that account may not have been detetced as a CFA. On the other hand, FICO might be penalizing you for it, but there are four other issues that are worse, and therefore it does not come up.
Regardless of what the reason codes say, just make reasonable attempts to get it paid off as soon as you can, without worrying about it too much. As you get close to paying it off, you might want to contact the creditor, cry about how FICO is spanking you, and this will wreck your chances for a home, etc. (That's a big exagerration, but say what you need to in order to get sympathy.) Ask if you pay it off whether they will delete it completely from your report.
The good news is that in Amber CFAs don't count -- and as a prince you can also find a shadow world where they don't.
Not sure the CFA penalty exists in FICO 8/9, it's something that wouldn't surprise me if it got removed TBH; hoping to see once EQ/EX get clean in a few months or by early next year worst case as there just won't be enough to complain about otherwise in comparison to anything moderately dirty like a CFA.
The reason I suggest that is it's a non-trivial one in the FICO 04 models, even with 1) tax liens and collections, 2) lates, 3) short credit history, 4) bunch of inquiries, my CFA has been on my EQ FICO 5 score reason codes for as long as we've been able to obtain them, 2.5 years and counting regardless of scorecard.
I hate CFA's, and of course my own at a company I used to work for no less, won't remove it. Blah, stuck with that crap weighing down my EQ trimerge score for another 5 years. Fortunately for me it missed TU and I don't get anything about a CFA in my EX FICO 2 reason codes either (it's there on EX FICO 3 though). Until recently my EQ FICO 5 and EX FICO 3 were my lowest scores by a non-trivial margin, since the lates got excluded though my EX FICO 2 has taken a hit and cut that spread down to 15 points.
Oh actually by the same premise as new accounts not affecting dirty scorecards, I now only have 3 reason codes on EX FICO 2 which is a FICO 98 model:
- 1. You have a public record and/or collection on your credit report.
- 2. You have a short credit history.
- 3. You've recently been looking for credit
Ergo at least for reason codes, CFA's may only affect FICO 04 models.
EX FICO 3 for comparison:
- 1. You have a public record and/or collection on your credit report.
- 2. You've recently been looking for credit.
- 3. You have a short credit history.
- 4. You have a consumer finance account on your credit report.
+1 to everyone saying don't worry about it.
@Anonymous wrote:Yup, I think we have all recommended not worrying about it -- nice when there is unanimity there.
This thread contains a 2015 report from someone (Racer-X) who had a CFA deleted and then the next day received an alert telling him that his score went up 26 points. Because it was an alert that suggests FICO 8 rather than some other FICO model.
I have reached out to him and asked him if he can confirm that he was using myFICO Ultimate or that he otherwise knows it was a FICO 8 score. May not hear back since he may no longer be on the forums, but thought I would ask. NRB525 asked him the same thing but didn't get an answer.
In retrospect it irritates me what we haven't been better at getting a confirmation of the model every time this gets brought up. And it gets brought up a lot. But we rarely pin that important fact down, at least in the several threads I have just looked through. Wish we had.
In the past there's really only been two sources of scores: here and CK, and even then here only had FICO 8 until 2.5 years ago roughly, so I know where the problem came in heh.
You're right, we need to get better at requesting where it came from, and if MF from what score version; I would point out though that racer-x was a poster from way back when Scorewatch was on Beacon 5.0 (EQ FICO 5, sorry I keep using the old names) and I know absolutely the CFA factors there. I forget when MF precisely switched to FICO 8 but it wasn't that much earlier than that post, think it was 9/14? That was when they released the new version of the product at least.
26 points EQ FICO 5, maybe; my EQ FICO 5 was 31 points below my TU FICO 4 (both FICO 04 models for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature) at the time of my mortgage, and the only file differences was that one account which happens to be a CFA on EQ that's not on TU, roughly 2 months AAOA as a result, and I think one additional inquiry? My EQ FICO 5 inquiry 3->2 or 2->3 is 7 points as seen both during my mortgage and now, which by napkin math is right close to Racer's results potentially.
Unfortunately I can't really make the comparison now as other than my 30D my TU file is darned close to pretty, but that 30 point disparity stuck around for 2 years until I started getthing my derogs removed, actually it got worse when my lates got whacked from EQ/EX. For all I know it'd been there longer too, I was flatly shocked at my mortgage pull when I saw that 731 as the only other FICO 04 model I had was EQ and I've never once cracked 700 on that.
I actually graphed my EQ FICO 5 over time yesterday from my start on the forums here using my DCU datapoints... it's depressingly flat haha.
@CreditGuyInDixie
Read other posts, understand what you're saying. now about the diff. between the accounts..Thanks for bringing info to table.....
Read other posts, understand what you're saying. now about the diff. between the accounts..Thanks for bringing info to table.....
