How can I find out what this means?

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

I'm looking under "Understanding Your FICO® Score"

under "What’s hurting your FICO® score"

It says: "The date of your most recent missed payment is unknown."

How can I find out what account it's referring to? No accounts actually have any unknown-date late payments.

Is it a bug that MyFICO does not mention the actual account, but just leaves it up to the user to guess which account it means? Or is this intentional? If so, why?

Could this be caused by the comment of an account, or would it have to be the status or what? If it could be caused by the comment, what comments could cause it?

Anonymous · ‎07-08-2008

axxy wrote:
I'm looking under "Understanding Your FICO® Score"
under "What’s hurting your FICO® score"
It says: "The date of your most recent missed payment is unknown."

How can I find out what account it's referring to? No accounts actually have any unknown-date late payments.

Is it a bug that MyFICO does not mention the actual account, but just leaves it up to the user to guess which account it means? Or is this intentional? If so, why?

Could this be caused by the comment of an account, or would it have to be the status or what? If it could be caused by the comment, what comments could cause it?

Did you click on the "Credit At-A-Glance" or the "Account" tab?

If there was a late, then there will be an orange-red flag next to the account that was late.

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

Another question is how the FICO scoring formula decides what date to use when it determines the date of the late can't be determined. Does it just automatically select an arbitrary date, such as one year ago, or what? Obviously the date has a major impact on the score, because recent lates count a lot more than old ones, so it has to have a date to do the scoring.

And another question is why it says "most recent late" if it has no date. How can it know that the late is the most recent?

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

The credit report has some lates, but all of them have known dates. The question is how to determine which of them is meant.

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

It looks to me like the unknown-date message has to be caused by a comment. (I mean one of the comments in the "descriptions" section of the account details.)

How can I find out what comments can cause this problem? How should Equifax change the comment to make it show the correct date, so this problem won't happen. Should Equifax simply add a date to the comment? Or what?

Or if I can convince Equifax to change the comment to a different comment that doesn't cause this problem, that might solve it. But how can I find out what comments won't cause it?

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

For now I'm going to assume it's caused by a comment, as I only have one red-flag account with no date of negative information, and that account has no negative information in it other than a comment.

So I just need someone from MyFICO to verify that the comment alone can cause this. And to answer my other questions, such as what I should ask for in my dispute to Equifax, to correct this problem. And what date the FICO scoring formula uses for the negative information in its calculation when the date is not present in the negative information.

Obviously if the date FICO uses by default is older than the actual date would be, then I should not dispute it. But how can I find out?

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

Another question is whether the FICO scoring formula gives more weight to the negative information if it's in the status than if it's in a comment, assuming it uses the same date for either.

And why the data furnishers might choose to report some negatives in the status and some in the comments. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each from their point of view?

Barry · ‎07-08-2008

axxy wrote:

I'm looking under "Understanding Your FICO® Score"

under "What’s hurting your FICO® score"

It says: "The date of your most recent missed payment is unknown."

How can I find out what account it's referring to? No accounts actually have any unknown-date late payments.

Is it a bug that MyFICO does not mention the actual account, but just leaves it up to the user to guess which account it means? Or is this intentional? If so, why?

Could this be caused by the comment of an account, or would it have to be the status or what? If it could be caused by the comment, what comments could cause it?

Typically, "The date of your most recent missed payment is unknown," means that the actual date of the negative item is not available to the scoring formula, even though the negative indicator is shown. This is because the month-to-month payment history made available to the score doesn't always go back the full 7 years. So, it may not always be possible to know from looking at a myFICO report exactly which account this statement is referring to. And this comment can be caused by any negative indicator on the trade line, whether a status, description, etc.

Message Edited by Barry on 07-08-2008 11:16 AM

Barry · ‎07-08-2008

axxy wrote:

Another question is whether the FICO scoring formula gives more weight to the negative information if it's in the status than if it's in a comment, assuming it uses the same date for either. Not necessarily. The weight is determined by the severity of the negative information -- not by where on the trade line it appears.

And why the data furnishers might choose to report some negatives in the status and some in the comments. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each from their point of view?

This just depends on the nature of the item and how the bureaus choose to report them.

axxy · ‎07-08-2008

My main questions are:

1. What the FICO scoring formula uses by default instead of the date it can't use.

2. What correction can be made to the description comment to make the date of that comment available to the scoring formula. Is it just a matter of adding a date to the comment?