Major Score Drop Why?

[Anonymous]

I’ve been on top of my credit for years. My scores the last 3 or so years have been in the low to mid 700’s. The ONLY derogatory mark on my report was (1) 60 day late mortgage payment from 2011.

My ex-wife was awarded the house in 2004, she also had full responsibility on paying, I remained on the loan because we had small children and I didn’t make her sell or buy me out. She did a wonderful job keeping up with that house and it could’ve been worse (recession). In her defense, she only fell behind once and, unfortunately, affected me.

Anyway, the baddie recently fell off the report. That’s when I noticed the drop in my score?! My TU score from Discover, Barclays, and BOA all show a drop of 52 points with a reason of “serious delinquency” on an account. I called TU and we went over my report thoroughly and there are ZERO negatives on my report. They even sent me a copy to prove it.

EQ had no major movement in my score but EX had about a 20 point drop so I called them and the same thing, no derogatory marks. I got that score from AMEX and the reason is the same, serious delinquency.

I thought I read somewhere when a baddie is about to drop off, it moves up “to the front of the line” so to speak and gets noticed again as not being so old. I’m wondering if this was the case.

Any thoughts on this? This really irks the heck out of me. Sorry for the long explanation but I wanted to give details.

[Anonymous]

If this was the only negative item on your credit report, having it drop off would not result in a score drop.

If your score dropped, it was due to something else.

[Pikaboo-icu]

You should probably pull your reports and see if there's anything there.

Get the freebies, if you haven't already at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action

Good Luck

ETA: If you got that score from AMEX, check the date they last updated. Often cc sites are weeks if not months behind.

It may change the next time they update it. 

[stellar]

Sometimes a bad account dropping off affects your AAoA.  Not sure if this happened in your case or if the account still showing.

[Anonymous]

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@stellar wrote:

Sometimes a bad account dropping off affects your AAoA.  Not sure if this happened in your case or if the account still showing.

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Just for clarity, the OP said that the derogatory mark fell off, not the account itself.  The derog was from 2011.  The account may still be open.  Even if were closed in say 2012 the account should not drop off until 2022. 

Perhaps our OP can confirm that the account is still on his report?

[Anonymous]

The account is still on the report, it’s a Wells Fargo mortgage that’s been paid off and closed. There’s nothing negative on my reports.

[Pikaboo-icu]

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@Anonymous wrote:
The account is still on the report, it’s a Wells Fargo mortgage that’s been paid off and closed. There’s nothing negative on my reports.

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If it's been paid off and you have no other loans, that might be the reason.

Do you have any other installment loans? 

[Anonymous]

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@AnonymousThe account is still on the report, it’s a Wells Fargo mortgage that’s been paid off and closed. There’s nothing negative on my reports.

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Is your utilization high?  How about your age of accounts factors?

A single 7 year old 60 day late payment by itself shouldn't hold scores in the low-mid 700's.  My scores were in the 750's-760's and I had multiple accounts with 90/120 day lates and those major lates were around 3 years old at the time. 

[Anonymous]

AAoA 3.7 years
Utilization 12%
ZERO Negatives

Could be because 9 of my accounts are recently new. There are only balances on 2 or 3 of the cards, and a new car loan.

According to the bureau’s, my scores are correct. They’ve already confirmed that there are No neg’s on my reports. I just find it strange that it would drop that much with really no reason. And my FAKO scores haven’t moved down at all (730’s and 40’s) and the info they report is very accurate and comparable to the bureau reports that I received. It is what it is I guess.

[Anonymous]

Step 1 IMO for quick score improvement of probably 15-20 points would be to take your aggregate utilization down another ~4%.