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I had 3 derogs on my credit report. One open tax lien (6/2008), one open collection (ECR opened 2/15, orig delinquency 11/2012) and one paid collection (AFNI opened 11/11, paid 4/16) and CC utilization was 32%.
On May 1, MyFico based on experian was 606. Auto 8 was 589 and Auto 2 was 632.
I had an inquiry, and my score actually went... UP...?? My Fico 8 went to 611. I paid the open ECR collection and I went to 621 and Fico Auto 8 went to 610, Auto 2 went 642. Paid off the credit cards and Fico 8 went to 631. Auto 8 went to 613, Auto 2 went to 662.
Then...I paid the tax lien, and a week later it was removed from Experian and I went up 2 whole points. Thought a tax lien would net me more. Maybe because I still had two derogs? Then the AFNI collection was removed by AFNI (after a phone call to them), and my fico went up 9 for that, bringing me to Fico 8 of 642.
I got excited, decided to kick down the $5 to Experian to get my updated Auto 8 and 2 scores, aaaaannnnnddd.....Fico Auto 8 went up to 623, BUT fico Auto 2 went DOWN!!!! Only by 1 point to 662. But still...**bleep**? How can removal of a tax lien of all things, make my score drop?
My CU uses Fico V2 for auto, and they have been very helpful in guiding me along this rebuild. If I can get to 680, I'll get 3.5% vs 6% on a new car loan.
These numbers are all coming from my Experian subscription. The starting numbers were MyFico subscription.
Your score likely didn't go up from an inquiry -- it probably went up due to AAoA increasing. Even if your AAoA or AoAA or AoNA goes up by just a month it can give you a few points.
As for the tax lien -- the removal of the tax lien from your reports can actually lower your AAoA. Odd, but true. If the lien was already really old its removal may have little effect on a report with other derogatories, but its age may increase your AAoA overall.
Going from 5 to 6 months should give you a small FICO boost, on certain FICO models. There should be a decent boost at 12 months and another at 24 months, etc.
That's in line with what I've seen from playing with the simulators. 8 months ago I was @ 483 and even got turned down for a SECURED card, so i really can't complain.
A tax lien and collection are both public records; AFAIK they're scored close to identically if not outright with how FICO does their scorecard segmentation.
In the case of the tax lien's being whacked, I lost some points on FICO 9 when my tax lien was removed from TU, and I lost some points across the board on EX/EQ when my lates were excluded. EX v2 was around 720, now down to 703. Previously with lates and no tax lien (temporary deletion) it was 742... so I have hope when my tax lien goes away I'll get points back there, but the short answer is you were prettier on your ugly scorecard with the tax lien than without it.
End of the day don't worry about it, it's a function of your short credit history which time will fix and end any derogatory being removed is a good thing regardless of what your score does in the short term.