Hello all,
Looking for some advise, or at least a little assurance that this is temporary(?). I've been rebuiding my credit and has my Experian score up to 608 (fair). Stepped back and knew I needed to garden for awhile after getting some new TL (and te inquiries that accompany them).
My score fell to 589. Okay, I understand
My score fell to 579. ?? I haven't missed any payments, infact I have overall utilization of no more than 13%
My score fell again to 560 after paying down another $8000 in debts and trying to clean up my reports and had over half my baddies go away
Why is it still going down?
Starting Score: TU 584 EQ 560 EX 686
@momofbeth wrote:Hello all,
Looking for some advise, or at least a little assurance that this is temporary(?). I've been rebuiding my credit and has my Experian score up to 608 (fair). Stepped back and knew I needed to garden for awhile after getting some new TL (and te inquiries that accompany them).
My score fell to 589. Okay, I understand
My score fell to 579. ?? I haven't missed any payments, infact I have overall utilization of no more than 13%
My score fell again to 560 after paying down another $8000 in debts and trying to clean up my reports and had over half my baddies go away
Why is it still going down?
Complicated situation:
Important question, are you getting your score from here at myFICO or somewhere else?
*Possible* drops if we're talking FICO though sounds wierd: inquires, reduction in AAOA (new tradelines aren't often reported immediately), you paid off your entire balance with the 8k and are now at 0% utilization?
Finally and the elephant in the room, which negatives came off and which ones are still left on your report?
@momofbeth wrote:Hello all,
Looking for some advise, or at least a little assurance that this is temporary(?). I've been rebuiding my credit and has my Experian score up to 608 (fair). Stepped back and knew I needed to garden for awhile after getting some new TL (and te inquiries that accompany them).
My score fell to 589. Okay, I understand
My score fell to 579. ?? I haven't missed any payments, infact I have overall utilization of no more than 13%
My score fell again to 560 after paying down another $8000 in debts and trying to clean up my reports and had over half my baddies go away
Why is it still going down?
There are definitely a few tings happening here. I am going to make a few assumptions as we don't have enough information to work here, but the first drop is probably due to any inquiries (if you applied for any cards). Second drop could be if mutiple cards are reporting balances. Remember, for the BEST fico result, you want to leave all cards reporting a $0 balance except one which should report as 9% or less.
The third drop, is very likely as a result of paying the $8000 debt. Any update on a baddie on the account (even if it means updated as a result of payment) will result on the baddie being reported as new. Once an account goes into collection or a Charged Off status, the last time an account was updated becomes relevant when it comes to the score. Remember, when paying off old accounts (charged off or collection), always try to PFD before making any payments. That within of itself will not help your score. In fact, in short term, besides the personal feeling of accomplishment of paying your debt off, does absolutely nothing to help your score.
Hope that helps,
The big elephant in the room is a collection / judgement which I am still paying down.
None of the $8000 were eligible for PFD because I didn't have anything to do that for. It was just paying down utilization. My true "baddies", with the exception of the above were both late payments (2x) of 30 days in 2010. I've been writing GW letters.
Of all my active TL (a total of (2) mortgage, no auto, 11 CC) only 3 show balances, all the rest are at "0". The mortgages are the ones with late payments 4 years ago.
Oldest tradeline: 28 years, AAoA 4.8 years
Was this a myFICO score pull for EX?
If so, sounds like what happened is what Iam82 might have suggested: paying down part of the collection and judgement might've triggered them to update and appear more recent. It's an unfortunate side effect of the report and the algorithm design as I understand it. I'd look at the reports and compare the last update / date of last activities on the derogatories.
If it wasn't, all bets are off: the 30 days late from 2010 likely aren't depressing your score that much, if this is a FICO score though, it almost has to be tied to the collection / judgement as the rest of your file isn't bad from what you suggest.
yes, this was a myFICO pull for Ex.
None of the money went to touch the collection / judgement. That's already being handled through wage garnishment and due to be finished soon. I thought it was a better idea to get all my other balances down and decrease my utiliizaton.
That's why I'm so confused. Four years of perfect payments and other than an app spree with no turn downs, but obviously adding inquiries and decreasing the AAoA, I should be going up.
@momofbeth wrote:yes, this was a myFICO pull for Ex.
None of the money went to touch the collection / judgement. That's already being handled through wage garnishment and due to be finished soon. I thought it was a better idea to get all my other balances down and decrease my utiliizaton.
That's why I'm so confused. Four years of perfect payments and other than an app spree with no turn downs, but obviously adding inquiries and decreasing the AAoA, I should be going up.
Check the dates on the derogs anyway: if you're being hit with a wage garnishment, they may be updating every single time they yank money from your check.
If the derogs are at a fixed point in time, depending on what your reported utillization metrics are (nothing like maxxing out a tradeline in a given month or having everything report $0 among other negatives in the algorithm), then I'd agree in general your score should be trending upward.
FICO wise I'd see if I could get the collection / judgement removed either through PFD or paying and vacating: financially, probably makes sense to reduce the credit cards, but if the garnishment is working as I fear it might be, you're going to be in FICO hell until they're paid and they stop refreshing (or otherwise get them removed which would be ideal).