"Oldest Credit Line"

[Anonymous]

I am new to building credit and expect my first FICO score at the end of the month. I have been using the Creditwise app from Capital One just as a guide. Under my "Key Factors" for my score it says things like "On time payments" and "Oldest Credit Line". Now, I opened my first Credit Card in September. But it says my oldest credit line is 4 years old. But doesn't tell me what it is. The only thing I opened 4 years ago was a cell phone account through Sprint. I had to pay a security deposit because of no credit, but would that count as a credit line? That's the only thing I can think of for my oldest credit line being 4 years old. 

[Anonymous]

If it's an account your credit report, it's a credit line.  It's possible that the cell phone company just did a hard pull of your credit report without adding an account though I suppose.  Have you ever pulled a copy of your credit report?  I would suggest doing that.  If this is an actual account it would be a good thing for you since it would give you 4 years of history over 6 months.  If it was an account, though, I would think you would have had a credit score some time ago. 

[Anonymous]

I did look at my credit report. It does not show anything about it. Weird

[Anonymous]

Was it a copy of your real credit report, or just one provided by a monitoring service?

I don't see any way that a 4 year old inquiry (which would be long gone by now once it hit 2 years of age) could cause the statement you provided in the original post to show up if there wasn't an account. 

[Anonymous]

I got it from annual credit report.com. But I think I know what it is. I had that derogatory from 4 years ago that I got removed through a goodwill letter. It was removed on experian and equifax, but for some reason it's still on Transunion. Since creditwise uses transunion. The derog was a $200 medical bill. A collection would be counted as a line of credit correct?

[Anonymous]

A collection is an account and would be seen on your credit report, so it does factor into credit history.