# of Negatives OR How Long On CR?

[Anonymous]

Hey folks

In disputing some things reported erroneously on my CR, I was wondering if by knocking off a negative or two would have any impact on my CS. It got me thinking about Quantity vs Time:

Which of these is most important/has most impact on your CS?

- number of negatives (say, 5 versus 15)

- how long they are on report (1 yr vs 6 yrs)

so, which would impact your credit rating more?

6 negatives in 2 years

15 negatives aged 5 years

[Remedios]

That heavily depends on severity of negatives, not just "time since" 

Some, like an isolated late may lose some impact over time.

Others, like 90, 120, CO, hurt the entire time, and CO that's reporting monthly is a score killer.

Same for collection accounts.

Are you saying you have 21 erroneous entries on your CR? 

[Anonymous]

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@Remedios wrote:

That heavily depends on severity of negatives, not just "time since" 

Some, like an isolated late may lose some impact over time.

Others, like 90, 120, CO, hurt the entire time, and CO that's reporting monthly is a score killer.

Same for collection accounts.

Are you saying you have 21 erroneous entries on your CR? 

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Ha! No I'm trying to think about the impact of 6 negatives (lates) before my BK7. I KNOW that my BK7 is like the biggest downer, but when I read the negative reasons in Experian or MyFICO 3B or my Equifax report (the part that lists good things like payment history on one side and bad things like BK on the other), and in AA letters, there is ALWAYS a line that says something about late payments. I was wondering if it matters that there are 6 or 15 or 1, or is it more important that they eventually fade away into time, beyond the magical 7-yr horizon. 

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Like @Remedios said, it depends on the severity. A couple of random 30 day lates will start to fade in strength at the 2 year mark while a 90-120 late will keep its strength almost the entire 7 years.

[Remedios]

Well, it's the highest level of delinquency that impacts your score the most.

You have a BK, and that makes lates completely irrelevant.

Save yourself some effort, your BK is brand new. Removing pre BK lates would amount to almost nothing.

You could potentially drop your scores further if anything (that's currently not updating) comes back validated.

You're looking at 15 to 20 points loss. 

Unfortunately webz will tell you to dispute, dispute, dispute. If that was all it took, no one would have negatives. 

[Anonymous]

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@Remedios wrote:

Well, it's the highest level of delinquency that impacts your score the most.

You have a BK, and that makes lates completely irrelevant.

Save yourself some effort, your BK is brand new. Removing pre BK lates would amount to almost nothing.

You could potentially drop your scores further if anything (that's currently not updating) comes back validated.

You're looking at 15 to 20 points loss. 

Unfortunately webz will tell you to dispute, dispute, dispute. If that was all it took, no one would have negatives. 

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This is very helpful thank you!!

 i guess I had a larger question (beyond my situation) about the quantity of negatives. For example, after a certain number of HPs/inquiries their impact lessens, I think after 10 or 11, right? Is that also true for negatives? 

[Anonymous]

Essentially yes. The biggest hit to your scores is having ANY negatives. If you had clean reports and scores in the mid-700s, a 30-late could cost you 80 points. A subsequent 30-late might cost you an additional 10. It's the fact that a derog exists at all that hurts the most. Conversely as you have negatives removed or they age off, you'll pick up a few points each time until the last one comes off, at which point your scores shoot upward now that no derogs exist.