I am trying to help my father examine more closely why he, after 40+ years of perfect credit, I'm talking 840's scores, has suddenly found his FICO at, gulp, 704. He was recently turned down for a loan for the first time in his life, and has asked me to investigate. Here's his stats: -Retired Educator, Active Minister -30K year (retirement plus minister salary, not including spouse's salary) -2 collection agency accounts found which were not his; we disputed successfully with all 3 bureaus -3 Visas, oldest opened in 70's, all with credit limits over $3000, no lates, zero balances -1 Mastercard, opened 2 years ago, zero balance, CL $5000, no lates -Discover card, opened in 80's, 399 balance, no lates, CL unknown -3 gas cards, $45 balance on one, CL all over 1K, no lates -4 closed paid as agreed vehicle loans with no lates and zero balances - one loan on the house with balance of $23K (vehicle), no lates, 1 year old - Sears and JCP cards, over 1K CL's, zero balances, no lates, opened in 1960's We cannot figure out for the life of us what is going on. He has an outrageous amount of inquiries, and **3 last year from JCP, and he hasn't used the card in 3 years!** We plan on disputing the inquiries, and I think he may need to close a few accounts. Other than that, could anyone please advise? He is distraught. Thanks in advance
For people with extremely high scores, inquiries can be a score killer. Allen lost around 80 pts( or close to it) with 1 inq. I don't think there is anything wrong other than the inq's. Depending on which cra you looked at, you may want to try and dispute some inq's.
How can you "successfully" dispute a Coll. Acct. if it's still on the report? The CRA's have what are called "Score Cards". I hear they have about 16 different ones. It can happen that an internal calculation "throws" the consumers report into a different score card and thus would be calculated somewhat differently. We don't know if he's in the same scoring algorithm. With a CF like his, and his score so high I'm sure he was in the most beneficial catagory for scoring purposes. I can also say that with ANY negative activity at all, he would not be in that [highest] catagory any more. See? My advice, dump those coll. accts. and he should see a significant boost. Also, having cards for many years with "no balances" insinuates that Dad doesn't use his cards. These companies expect to make money when they make laons. Having a card with a customer that doesn't even use it only costs the co. money. .
my first question is: when was the last time his credit was checked before this to determine 840 scores? second: do you still have that report to compare to the current report? third: is the current score before or after the collections were removed?
Jen, I surmised that the Coll. Accts. are still present. They are listed under his; "current stats". Am I missin somethin? .
Is the $23,000 home loan which you listed (auto) a HELOC?? If so, that could be it. HELOC's look like you are maxed out on a revolving account. It's a score-tanker. Done on purpose, IMO, to limit chances of a re-fi at lower rates.
Butch- I mistakenly listed the collection accounts under current stats.....this credit report was pulled a month ago and we got the two collection agency accounts removed last week. Sorry! I also went through his credit cards and talked to him about how many of them he truly uses. He is gonna get rid of a Target Visa and another Visa that he never uses, he got both of them to get "better deals" on "stuff". Since his Sears and JC Penney accounts are so old, he really doesn't want to boot them, so I advised him to start making purchases on them about every 3 months or so. He uses the rest of the cards on a pretty regular basis, but pays his balance off in full each month. Jenz- his score in the 840's was about 2-3 years ago, he lost the copy he had of the report, but had the score written down. It's pretty much been in that range for years. The current score was "before" the collection agency accounts were removed. breeze- I'm not sure if that auto loan is a HELOC. I feel a little ignorant, but I've never heard that term before. It doesn't list it as such on the credit report (don't laugh, just thinking logically) and I really don't know if Dad knows either. Thanks guys, for all your help.
HELOC = Home Equity Line of Credit. A revolving account which uses home equity to collateralize. Breeze is saying it appears as a maxed lined. If that's the case it may indeed hurt the score. I just can't figure why so many points, geez. 150 ? .
Perhaps his retirement has lowered his income and that's shown up on one of the recent apps he's made for "stuff"?
After the posters clarifications, I'd say this: The score was before the collections were removed. Those collections being removed will immediately raise his score. With his scores being as high as they were, any negative tradeline is going to kill those scores. If the HELOC is showing as a revolving acct as Breeze said, that will also hurt. And I maintain that with high scores, inquiries will be a score killer as well. I would pull another report now that the 2 collection accounts are gone and you will probably see a dramatic increase. The first negative on a report is a killer and the last negative to be removed usually results in a substantial increase in score. Go to myfico.com and pull a new report.
Many thanks to all who gave advice. We are pulling his reports and scores tomorrow. Then I'm gonna get started on disputing a bunch of those bogus entries. Wow. Who would have thought that a HELOC would be a score-blaster. Rationale?
