How can I find out what this means?

[axxy]

For example, suppose an account has a description that says "settlement accepted on this account" and I can convince Equifax to change it to "settlement accepted on this account a long time ago" or "settlement accepted on this account years ago".  Would that change make any difference at all to the score?  Or what if they changed it to say "settlement accepted on this account 2/1/2004" or something like that?

[Barry]

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axxy wrote:

My main questions are:

1.  What the FICO scoring formula uses by default instead of the date it can't use.  This depends on the item.  There's no simple answer for this, but examples are dates of last activity, status date, closed date, reporting date.

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?

No.  The description comment is reported by the lender according to how the account was paid.  This is not something the consumer can control.

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[Barry]

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axxy wrote:

For example, suppose an account has a description that says "settlement accepted on this account" and I can convince Equifax to change it to "settlement accepted on this account a long time ago" or "settlement accepted on this account years ago".  Would that change make any difference at all to the score?  Or what if they changed it to say "settlement accepted on this account 2/1/2004" or something like that?

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Other than "settlement accepted on this account," these are not valid descriptions and, again, it is up to the lender to report it.

[axxy]

So all these answers depend on the exact situation.  So when I ask such questions I should include exact details.

Suppose it shows the "settlement accepted on this account" description but no other negative information at all on that account.  In that case, which of the various dates would it use for that settlement description in the score calculation?  Or does it still depend on other details I haven't mentioned yet?

And suppose Equifax were to change it to show a settlement status instead of description, and the same date of status as the date that had been used by default for the description.  In other words, the negative gets moved from description to status, and the date used remains the same.  In that case, would the score impact be the same, less, or more?

[Barry]

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axxy wrote:

So all these answers depend on the exact situation.  So when I ask such questions I should include exact details.

Correct.  Although there's still only so much I can publicly disclose about how the score works.

Suppose it shows the "settlement accepted on this account" description but no other negative information at all on that account.  In that case, which of the various dates would it use for that settlement description in the score calculation?  Or does it still depend on other details I haven't mentioned yet?

The dates the score uses are labeled differently in different reporting formats.  On the myFICO reports, the date describing when an account took on the "settled" designation -- and most negative descriptions -- is usually the date of last activity.

And suppose Equifax were to change it to show a settlement status instead of description, and the same date of status as the date that had been used by default for the description.  In other words, the negative gets moved from description to status, and the date used remains the same.  In that case, would the score impact be the same, less, or more?

"Settlement" only appears as a description item and not as a "status".

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