credit score

[Anonymous]

Hello, I have been working to improve my credit for 2+ years now and it seems as though it goes up and down.  My last credit score 2/2008 was 670 then on 3/2008 it dropped to 664 and a dramatic drop occured on 3/17/2008 to 620.  I looked at my report and noticed that a collection was reported on an account that's about 5-6 years old.  I then paid off an account and thought that would raise my score but it didn't happen.  I'm wondering how can one single collection account for this length of time drop my score 44 points and when I paid off an account my score didn't change.  I'm confused and frustated to say the least.  Does anyone have any suggestions, etc.?

[fused]

Hi ssdmsd! Welcome to the forums! A single collection can be very damaging to your FICO scores. In FICO scoring, paid and unpaid collections are treated the same...one is not better than the other. Please read the credit scoring 101 thread in my siggy.

[Junejer]

ssdmsd, what Fused said AND if the "old" collection was just reported in March 2008, then the updated information is "new" so to speak. Therefore, it looks and feels like it's a new collection, even though it doesn't change CRTP. That still is 7-7.5 years from DOFD/DOLA.