I spoke to a CSR from Equifax a few months ago. I asked why my accounts that I had paid off were not changed to an R5 as opposed to an R9. The CSR told me that there wasn't a difference regarding trashing your credit. The weigh the same. The R5 was 120+ days past due and the R9 was charged off. Has anyone been told differently? I would like to know what these really mean and how they weigh on my scores.
The main difference is that an account that is 120+(R5) past due may not neccessarily be a charge off yet and an R9 has already been charged off. I would think that up until charge off a person could still bring there account current and it would not become a charge off. They are both bad but I think it depends on the situation. An R5 status is more recent and probably hurts your score more than an older charge off would.
I think one of the big problems with the credit bureaus is that they treat details on your credit report with this cavalier attitude. Back in the days when credit reports were manually reviewed, there may have been little difference between an R5 or R9 when a lender evaluated your file. Now with credit scoring, your data is compared to all the other credit users' data in that CRA's files, and your score represents a deviation from those who cause lenders the fewest losses. This data comparison does not take causation into account (which gives the whole scoring system it's RNG* flavor). For instance, if it were so that of all the people in EQ's files, 70% of those with an R9 filed BK within six months, and 80% of those with an R5 were never late on another bill, all other things being equal, an R9 would hit your score harder than an R5, even though to a manual reviewer they would appear to carry the same weight. This is why it's important that every detail in your credit report be accurate. Continue to dispute these errors, sometimes the CRA's get overwhelmed and bad things just disappear ;-) *RNG is copyright George (I can't figure out how to make the "c" symbol)
