Persistance works! As many of you may know, I started cleaning up things about 3 years ago. Started with FICOs in the high 400's and low 500's. Anyways, I was down to 3 derogs on each -- all the same, all collection accounts. Two of them were paid years ago and scheduled to remain until 4/02 and 5/02 ($52 and $85 each). The last was an UNPAID one scheduled to remain until 10/02 for $72. Regarding my TU report, I've disputed the UNPAID one somewhere near 5 or 6 times over the past year or so. Each time it was verified, but I think that TU simply did NOT investigate it. I disputed it again last month. Low and behold, it was DELETED this time around, albiet with just 10 months left until it was going to fall off anyways. But check this out. I gained 32 points for that one little unpaid $72 collection account, going from a 677 to a 709. Not bad. Check out my top 4 reason codes now: (1) COLLECTION AMOUNTS EVER OWED ARE TOO HIGH -- For crying out loud, there WAS a grand total of $209. Why this reason code, and why was it #1 ?? (2) TOO MANY RECENT INQUIRES - what's RECENT? one in 12/01, one in 10/01 by some insurance co without my permission, then 4 in 9/01 for my mortgage, all within a week period. Can't they see the friggin' trend for the mortgage inquiries? Pah-leze. (3) TOO MANY RECENTLY OPENED ACCOUNTS -- this is a crock! All my cards, installment, cars have been open for 3 years or more. What they are picking up is that my mortgage has been sold 5 times in two years, but why does my credit risk increase because companies are buying and selling my mortgage? Gheesh! (4) TOO MANY INQUIRIES - 14 in the past 2 years, but 7 were for my mortgage, 2 were NOT authroized (insurance co quotes) and a couple were credit cards. I don't care, this reason code is welcome in lieu of what it COULD be ... I guess that my reason codes could be worse, so I won't be griping too much!
This is music to my ears. I've got some CO's due to come off later this year. Hopefully my disputes get them off a little early and scores increase dramatically. People have said extremely old accounts are not hurting your score much. But you have proven that they can.
John, I pulled my TU report 3 times in January, at one week apart each. The first score was 699. The next week it was 732. What changed? Deletion of a positive but unrated AmEx account from 1993. That was the only change and it gave me 33 points. I never thought it would hurt me but evidently it did. lesson: change "unrated" accounts to "paid or paying as agreed"...
You gotta love the system. Contrast the above with my experience. My last and only paid collection ($57) dropped off and I gained one point. It was 2 1/2 years old. An old MBNA account (from 5 or 6 years ago) I got but never used, marked "pays on time", was deleted and I lost 12 points. I have been paying off CC debt as fast as possible, paying down over $1,000 in principal last month alone. Nothing else changed. I lost 3 points. Its a great system.
They don't have reason codes they have excuse codes and are always changing then and adding new ones all the time.
Oh I've got to add one into this mix. My number 4 TU Factor? "Too few mortgage accounts - Not enough mortgage account activity has a negative impact on your credit score" How many more houses do they want me to buy? They're reporting my mortgage already. Sheesh!
