Will getting rid of one out of two CAs help my score?

[valley_man0505]

I have gotten my report down to the point where there are only two baddies remaining.  These are both medical CAs.  Both CAs were opened at the same time by the same CA.  I could possibly PIF the smaller of the two, meaning that I could get it off my report through the HIPAA process.  However, will this even do me any good from a scoring standpoint since there will still be one left behind that has the same date?

I am already aware that the amount of the CA does matter from a scoring standpoint, but does it really only matter how many CAs there are, or is just the length of time since your most recent CA that matters?  Obviously, if I get rid of one of them, the number of CAs will go down, but since the date is the same for both of them, the length of time since my most recent collection would not change.

[Anonymous]

IME, removing one baddie out of two will not significantly impact your score.

However, it will feel darn good to pay off the one debt that you can.  I highly recommend it. 

And, who knows, life may surprise you and you may be able to handle the other one -- even if you don't currently anticipate being able to do so.

Best wishes to you!

[valley_man0505]

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@Anonymous wrote:

IME, removing one baddie out of two will not significantly impact your score.

However, it will feel darn good to pay off the one debt that you can.  I highly recommend it. 

And, who knows, life may surprise you and you may be able to handle the other one -- even if you don't currently anticipate being able to do so.

Best wishes to you!

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I agree, and I would do that if I didn't have a wedding coming up.  At this point, our wedding is slightly over budget, so I don't want to spend anything in the next couple of months unless it would actually help my credit since money will be tight till June.

The only reason I am considering doing anything before then is that I know have a CC or two that I get CLIs on if I could squeeze a few more points out of my FICO.  I'd like to have the extra credit available just in case we run into any unexpected overruns on wedding night since the final balances are all due that night.

 After the wedding, though, it is a different story.  Then, it is time to become "baddie-free".

[laz98]

i think it will just vary.  i just had the smaller of my 2 baddies fall off of my experian report, & my score jumped 32 points.  honestly, i was worried that losing the age of the account would hurt me more than having the negative drop off would help me.  hopefully it will be a positive thing for you too!

[Anonymous]

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@valley_man0505 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

IME, removing one baddie out of two will not significantly impact your score.

However, it will feel darn good to pay off the one debt that you can.  I highly recommend it. 

And, who knows, life may surprise you and you may be able to handle the other one -- even if you don't currently anticipate being able to do so.

Best wishes to you!

---

I agree, and I would do that if I didn't have a wedding coming up.  At this point, our wedding is slightly over budget, so I don't want to spend anything in the next couple of months unless it would actually help my credit since money will be tight till June.

The only reason I am considering doing anything before then is that I know have a CC or two that I get CLIs on if I could squeeze a few more points out of my FICO.  I'd like to have the extra credit available just in case we run into any unexpected overruns on wedding night since the final balances are all due that night.

 After the wedding, though, it is a different story.  Then, it is time to become "baddie-free".

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Congratulations and best wishes on your wedding!

oh - and I'm glad to see laz saw some points in her situation - wish I would have in mine!

[StartinOver]

Here's a thought. They might have both been added at the same time by the same CA, but the date of first default might not be the same. That determines when it falls off, not the date they first reported it. They sometimes take them off and later re-open it so they can have a more recent date showing to creditors to do you the most harm they can.

[valley_man0505]

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@StartinOver wrote:

Here's a thought. They might have both been added at the same time by the same CA, but the date of first default might not be the same. That determines when it falls off, not the date they first reported it. They sometimes take them off and later re-open it so they can have a more recent date showing to creditors to do you the most harm they can.

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Everything is the same.   They both stem from a surgery my ex-wife had while we were still married.  I had over $4000 pop up on my report (split between 12 different acccounts) 2 years ago for this same surgery right before I was ready to apply for a mortgage.  By some miracle I was able to pay those off and have the CA remove all 12 of those.  At that time, I had contacted the hospital to make sure that EVERYTHING from that surgery was now paid for.  They said that it was.  Next thing I knew, 2 more popped up (after my mortgage was finalized, luckily).  Apparently, the billing for the anesthesiologist and the pathologist is done by a 3rd party, so these weren't included in the first wave of CAs.

Bad situation all around.  We are already separated, but she was technically still on my insurance.  I never saw any of the bills since she had already moved out and had a separate mailing address.  Our divorce decree says she is supposed to be responsible for all medical bills she accrued during the marriage, so I didn't realize I would ever have the pay them.  What I didn't know at the time was that the divorce decree means nothing in this case--they still have every right to collect from me and put these bills on my report since we were married at the time.  Live and learn.

[valley_man0505]

I think I may have answered my own question.  In my original post, I stated that I only had 2 baddies left.  This statement was right after AFNI removed 1 of the remaining 3 CAs that I had left.  The AFNI CA that was removed was from 2009 and that left me with only the two CA's I mentioned in my previous posts, which were from 2008. 

Well, I finally pulled my scores for the first time since AFNI was removed and that only moved me from 627 to 631.  Since removing a CA from 2009 only had a minimal effect, I don't think I would get ANY effect from removing one of the two CA's that remain. 

Getting BOTH of them gone will be huge, though--my report will be baddie free once that happens.

[Anonymous]

Yes - Baddie free is a good thing, even if it probably won't have a huge immediate effect.  And sometimes, moving to a "clean" bucket could hurt in the short term.  Congrats on the CA removal(s)!

I'm GW'ing Verizon and then I'll be clean as a whistle, baby!

[RobertEG]

As I understand FICO bucketeing, one of the major first cuts on placement within a scoring bucket, or algorithm, is whether or not the consumer file is "clean" or "dirty," meaning hte presence of one or more major derogs, or mutliple other derogs.  Since the remaining collection wont move the consumer out of a "dirty" credit file categorization, I dont believe the impact will be as great as removing the last of major derogs.

Some anecdotal experiences seem to confirm this, but the mystery of FICO bucketing leaves us primarily to speculation.....