My friend's new BK just hit her Experian credit report. She now has 2 chapter 7's, 1 judgement, countless chargeoffs. She has 12 derogotory items and 1 positive that was a car loan paid off 4 years ago and only open for 1 year. She bought the car and traded it in one year later so technically she didn't pay it off since the loan was rolled into her new loan that was just charged off. I have a chp. 7 that is over 4 years old, 2 30 day lates that are over 2 years old, 1 paid collection that is over 4 years old. I have 4 included in BK accounts. I have tons of positive tradlines including a mortgage, auto loan, visa, retail card and paid off installment loans. Her score is now 26 points higher than mine. Should I file BK? Sure sounds like FICO thinks it's a good idea. I just don't get it. Kim
Well, that could be an interesting opportunity to do a bit of research. I'd be interested in getting the answers to the folllowing questions. 1. What is the age of each of you? 2. What is the approximate income each has? 3. What zip code do each of you live in? 4. Are there ethnic differences between you? 5. Is there a sexual difference between you? 6. Type of employment between each? 7. Are you home owners, renters or what? 8. Any other differences between you that you might imagine could make a difference?
I would be interested too as I am starting a report called The Great FICO Fraud, which when done in 6 months or so, will be given to one of my Senators here in FL. WALLST
Wallst, As part of your research you may want to look into a sudden change in Equifax/Fico's scoring method that occurred around January 1st, 2003. I had been watching my scores on a daily basis with Credit Watch and saw a 42 point drop in my Equifax/Fico score overnight (724-682). My score had been above 720 for over 6 months. Since I had no derogs or inquiries or changes (except a much lower debt), I was stumped at what caused the sudden drop until I read the score analysis. For the first time, listed under negative factors, I found the statement - "too many bankcard accounts". Suddenly they were counting ALL credit card accounts - open or closed, inactive or active. It was further explained in the details that I had 13 bankcard accounts although I had only 6 that were open. The rest were closed years ago and paid in full. One had been closed over 9 years ago. I complained to both FICO and Equifax and they either tried to explain it away with the old "new scorecard" story or pass the buck to each other. But curiously, about 5 days later, Equifax had added to the score explanation the words, "open or closed" after "too many bankcard accounts". I wonder who benefits from this new scoring model where people who've done a lot of debt-shuffling and balance transfers, who've opened and closed a lot of accounts over the years, are penalized? And not by just a few points. Good luck with your report. Woeful
Well, I know my score took a hit because I got my mortgage in September and then it was transferred a couple of months later. I took the a 30 point hit the first time and about a 15 to 20 point hit with the second one. I also lost some points when I bought a car in December and my Carter Lumber card started reporting. I am hoping my score will increase after a few months. As far as our differences, She lives in a zip code that is primarily inner city and poor but the area she is on is not that bad. I live in ultimate middle class suburbia We're both white, early 30's, similar incomes, married, One difference is that she has a job and I don't. Her job is park caretaker so she has no housing bills so she's not a homeowner and I am. I have high balances on a few cards and of course now she will have 0 balances because of the BK. My score is only 554 today, up 4. It was around 620 before the mortgages and new accounts hit. I know it would be a lot higher if I paid off my accounts. Her score today is 576. Kim
Legalized extortion is another name for it, QUOTE]Originally posted by WALLST I would be interested too as I am starting a report called The Great FICO Fraud, which when done in 6 months or so, will be given to one of my Senators here in FL. WALLST [/QUOTE]
Ok. Thanks for the info. Both of you are still in the "poor credit" area according to privacyguard.com then. As lots of folks here on creditnet are aware privacyguard.com has a set of ratings of their own callled "very poor" "poor" and so on up the ladder. On a sort of a side note, I just had a lady leave my office this morning who became a student of mine just before Thanksgiving and she had about 35 or so derogs including a BK and using my methods she now has no derogs at all. But she came to my office on March 25th and complained that we still had 5 derogs on her credit reports and she just didn't know if we were going to get rid of them or not. She was really downhearted when she came into the office that day over those 5 derogs. One was her BK which was way more than 2 years old so it wasn't going to keep her from getting a house. She wanted to know if she shouldn't just pay them off and be done with it and I said no because they were all well past Oklahoma statute for bringing suit. One was a car repo and some other stuff and all of them had been disputed during the holidays. We got the disputes in on the 26th of November according to the green cards and they all came back verified and all of them definitely had something or other wrong with the information so there wasn't any reason they should have come back verified at all. Mostly they were pretty glaring errors too. Anyway I told her to let me have one more shot at it with the credit bureaus before she filed suit on them because they were all original creditors so we could not go after them under FDCPA. So I devised a totally new approach to that type of problem. A totally new letter with a totally new appraoch to getting them removed but I only attacked two of them, not all 5. She came back to the office this morning and she was all smiles and doing the happy dance. They were all gone. Every one of them. Didn't make any difference that we had not even disputed 3 of them. They were gone too. (LOL) And they were gone off of all 3 reports and it happened in 14 days from the time the credit bureaus got the letters. She couldn't come in to tell me about it until this morning because she is a nurse and works tons of 16 hour shifts trying to get the money for her new house so she has a decent down payment. This method I've developed don't quote any laws, don't make any threats, nothing like that at all. Not even close. And I can't imagine it would work unless there is honestly something wrong with the listings. I'm not going to reveal the method for a while yet because I want some more proof that this isn't just a fluke before I release it to the public. So I'm going to have some of my students test it out and then I'll release it to the public for the simple reason that I don't do credit repair as most folks know and anything happen to come up with that does deal with credit repair I'll always release to the public for free just to prove I don't deal with or do credit repair. And this really isn't some kinky deal at all. Pretty much just common sense stuff that should have been thought of long ago but because of the fact that people tend to get into a "rut" so to speak and tend to think that everything has to be in an adverserial context they just haven't thought of going at it this way. So the rules to use it most likely are the following. 1. Has to be something actually wrong with the listing. 2. Probably better if they are older listings. I don't know yet if they have to be OC listings or not but I seriously doubt it. I also seriously doubt that it makes any difference whether they have been disputed before or not. Might help though. Like I said however I'm going to let some of my students test it awhile before I realease it to the public so we know that it works and how well first.
Interesting Bill. I can't wait for the grand unveiling!! As for the rest of this thread, when DH and I started looking at our credit 2 years ago his ch. 13 was just short of a year discharged. Plus he had a 7 from 5 years earlier. Alot of the baddies that were included in his bk but didn't say so yet, some baddies not included in bk and no new credit. I, on the other hand, had two CCs in good standing both under a year, and had some baddies and a few good closed accounts. I also had a car loan that has lots of lates early on but had been all good for almost two years. His scores were higher than mine. He was in the 600s on all and I was a little lower than where I am now - mid 500s or so. Same age, same neighborhood (small town). Differences were gender, of course, and while I was a restuarant manager making pretty good money, he was a railroad engineer with Union Pacific making quite a bit more (almost triple). However, when we first disputed, all the accounts that should have been included in bk for him all of the sudden were (most weren't even disputed) and his score dropped to low 500s. ??? Now with a few good TLs he is up.
1*For the first time, listed under negative factors, I found the statement - "too many bank card accounts". Suddenly they were counting ALL credit card accounts - open or closed, inactive or active. It was further explained in the details that I had 13 bankcard accounts although I had only 6 that were open. The rest were closed years ago and paid in full. One had been closed over 9 years ago. 2*I wonder who benefits from this new scoring model where people who've done a lot of debt-shuffling and balance transfers, who've opened and closed a lot of accounts over the years, are penalized? And not by just a few points. Woeful ================ 1*That's the magic of the scam: they can change the criteria and rules whenever and however they feel like it. Also the creditors and insurers can increase the score required to get the best rates as they wish. 2*That's easy the insurance companies and the banks of course. *********** LB 59
Actually, its so simple that when it does come out I suspect most folks here will be laughing about it. I know I I sure am. But sometimes things that seem kinda dumb do work and sometimes better than fancy letters quoting all kinds of law and making all kinds of threats do. Works or not, the first sentence or two in the letter is what will get everybody laughing. And it's got to be the reason it worked.
I just now checked her privacyguard.com account and getting rid of 5 old derogs didn't help her score by very much. Almost insignificantly in fact but it did get her in a position where she can at least get a home loan now because she has no derogatories on her credit report. I have to presume that the reason for the small increase in the score is because she does have a pretty high debt/available credit ratio so her credit usage is pretty high. Just about all maxed out. She also bought a new luxury car a year or so ago before she got the idea of buying a house so she has high payments on that and she has borrowed to the max from some small loan companies which sure don't help her at all and only has 1 visa credit card and can't get any more but she has been trying all over which gets her inquiries way up in numbers dragging her score down even more. I've taught her what she has been doing wrong and she willl be doing the 3 banks trick so once she pays those off that should increase her scorre pretty good too. All in all she has got a long hard road ahead of her paying off all those bills before she can hope to get a high score but at least I've got her on the right road now. She started with me November 21st last year with 35 real nasty derogs and now just 5 plus months later she is as clean as a whistle.
No problem at all. Be glad to. Just send me an email I'll reply and the trick will be in an attachment as a text message.
Don't forget this is from the same company that "THINKS" ONE inquiry is worth more points than ZERO inquires!!!
***This explaines it. *** Victims of Credit Reporting *** http://members.aol.com/victcrdrpt/Score.html
