Equifax FICO Score - How is this possible??

[Tim_S]

In the beginning of July,  I disputed  a "repo" comment in my Equifax credit file due to the repo being more than 7 years old and I requested that comment be removed, (plus the car was reclaimed by me the next day and I got caught up on payments and never had another late payment again).  While the dispute was "under investigation", Equifax  temporarily removed the comment and my Equifax Fico 8 jumped up 25 points.  I was just notfiied over the weekend that Ally Financial, (my old auto finance company) confirmed the repo, (no further info available) and Equifax re-inserted the  repo comments and my Equifax Fico 8 score dropped 75 points!!!!!!  Can ANYONE please explain to me how this is possible???  

[Anonymous]

Curious to hear what other people say.  Strictly speaking, I thought I had always understood from the veterans here that a "comment" (considered by itself) could not affect one's score.  That always made sense to me since comments require an intelligent human who is an English speaker to interpret, which the FICO computer program is not (neither human nor intelligent nor an English speaker).

Is it possible that along with the comment something else has been updated?  E.g. a record devoted solely to the repo (e.g. similar to a collection, say)?

Regardless, from a practical perspective, an important step on your end would be to figure out whether you can assemble your own documentation (oustide credit reports) that show the stuff you claimed in your original post.  E.g. the date of the repo, proof of the date, any correspondence that might support the date and the fact that it was made right within a week after, etc.

I think RobertEG has mentioned before that the actual timeline for removal of some derogs is 7.5 years, rather than 7 years.  When exactly did the repo happen?

What tools are you using to pull your EQ credit report? 

You also mentioned that your were "notified" that Ally confirmed the repo.  Who notified you?  Equifax?  Did they send you an email? 

When you see a drop of 75 points, what tool is showing you that drop and how?  (Is it an alert via the myFICO Ultimate tool, for example?)

[Anonymous]

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@Tim_S wrote:

In the beginning of July,  I disputed  a "repo" comment in my Equifax credit file due to the repo being more than 7 years old and I requested that comment be removed, (plus the car was reclaimed by me the next day and I got caught up on payments and never had another late payment again).  While the dispute was "under investigation", Equifax  temporarily removed the comment and my Equifax Fico 8 jumped up 25 points.  I was just notfiied over the weekend that Ally Financial, (my old auto finance company) confirmed the repo, (no further info available) and Equifax re-inserted the  repo comments and my Equifax Fico 8 score dropped 75 points!!!!!!  Can ANYONE please explain to me how this is possible???  

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They confirmed the repo but did not confirm the date and the fact it should fall off at 7 years of negative reporting. This is a standard issue with Equifax and how they handle disputes considered to be "item verify" in nature. They just check to see if it is still reported as a repo by Ally and don't dig any deeper. 

As far as the huge difference in your score before, during and after the dispute. You should not have seen such a large jump in score for an account being disputed. What I have seen happen is they "remove" the account from your scoring which would account for the large bump in score and then once they "item verify" it report it as a new, negative item even though it's the same old account. You'll have to check Equifax or any other credit agency to check for "alerts" that will tell you how they re-reported the account after the dispute was finished. If you have an alert for a new negative item and it's your Ally account....they hosed you. You'll need to get an accounting from Ally as to the exact date of the repo, file a dispute with the uploaded documents citing the 7 year negative reporting toll and ask for the account to be updated, not deleted, to reflect the new information. 

[Tim_S]

I just got off the phone with Ally.  Since the loan was paid off in 2012 and I have since traded the car in, Ally has no record of my loan. I had to give them the VIN, (which luckily I had a picture of on my phone) and they said even though the VIN came back to my car year make and model, they had someone elses name associated with it, (not my ex-wife either).  

I asked the rep how Equifax could verify the repo with Ally if Ally doesn't have any record of my loan and the rep said, "I understand your frustration" and I replied, "I don't think you do"! (reminded me of the Seinfeld episode when Jerry had a car reservation but they didn't have a car available for him. " You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.)    

I asked to speak to a supervisor who got on the phone and I explained everything all over again.  The supervisor said he would open a dispute ticket and said the repo should have been removed from my credit report if it's older than 7 years.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I get somewhere with Ally, since I got no where with Equifax.

[Anonymous]

I almost choked trading your post. I couldn't respond fast enough. Ally financial have a lot of nerve after all of the strategic discrimination (collection) practices they use. Not an apology or anything and can stand behind the "it's just business" excuse. It's a huge mistake by given so much power to these unethical businesses and corporations. The government money used to fund GM and other illegal business practices used by their "umbrella brands", finance companies, and online banks to keep America in competition with the rest of the world, was used in the governments face to defraud THEIR citizens. Ally, the Equifax company, Bank of America, Freddie Mac, Sallie Mae and the United States Judicial System is a slap in the face for everyone with integrity, morals, and who makes ethically based decisions.

[Anonymous]

In simple terms, it sounds like when you opened your dispute that the account (not the comment) was not taken into consideration for scoring [score increase] and then later it again was considered for scoring [score decrease].

[Thomas_Thumb]

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BrutalBodyShots wrote:

In simple terms, it sounds like when you opened your dispute that the account (not the comment) was not taken into consideration for scoring [score increase] and then later it again was considered for scoring [score decrease].

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Good call by BBS .

A formal dispute on an account/derog requires that the account be ignored in Fico while the dispute is active. Once the dispute is marked closed by the CRA the account/derog is again considered in Fico scoring (unless the outcome was removal of the account/derog.

[Anonymous]

I read on another forum about someone having a much lower score on one CRA than the others and they ccouldn't figure out why. After much research and escalating the issue with the CRA, he found out that it was the 'comment' on one of his accounts causing the problem. They removed the comment and his score jumped up. According to the CRA a negative comment can overide the history of an account.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I read on another forum about someone having a much lower score on one CRA than the others and they ccouldn't figure out why. After much research and escalating the issue with the CRA, he found out that it was the 'comment' on one of his accounts causing the problem. They removed the comment and his score jumped up. According to the CRA a negative comment can overide the history of an account.

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I don't believe it's the "comment" in and of itself, it's that the comment is basically causing the account to be excluded from scoring due to an ongoing dispute.  FICO scoring looks at accounts and the data contained within each one when it generates a score, it doesn't look at the words within the account.  If the words (comment) cause the account to be excluded from scoring, certainly that can result in a dramatically different score if that account was one with a major delinquency/derog, especially if it was the only negative account.