I don’t know about the other Bureaus, but when the "Date Reported" section for a collection updates on EQUIFAX, it DOES affect your FICO/Credit Score. I subscribe to "alerts" with Equifax, so I can clearly see any changes in my credit report and information reported as well as FICO score changes. It is very clear when something is reported or removed and a FICO change occurs on the same day. Hence I receive the notice such as: "A decrease in your FICO® score happened on the same day as a change on your Equifax Credit Report™ which triggered an alert."
I recently had a collection that was first reported 12/09/07, and on the same day my FICO dropped by 29 pts! A full 4 months later, the same collection was reported again (updated, re-reported, whatever) on 04/17/08. Same account number, amount, etc. - just updated for some reason with Equifax by the collection agency. There has been NO ACTIVITY (payments, balance change, etc.) on this account at all, yet my score dropped ANOTHER whopping 29 pts! on the same day this collection showed a newly updated "date reported". So I know first hand that the date reported affects your score. It will not affect the 7 year time frame (calculated from the date of 1st delinquency according to an Equifax rep), but it sure affected my score severely.
The “date reported” may not affect your score as severely or at all with other types of account info. My experience is with a recently added collection account.
Message Edited by JLen on
04-28-2008 02:03 PM
