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     | Friday, March 03, 2000 - 03:27 pm  What exactly is "activity" If I have a charge off that was done 2 years ago, and I contact the agency and negotiate a payment or payoff completely, or even better yet, I just contact them and discuss my account, is that activity and does the 7 years start over?
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 03:11 am It's seven years from the last time the account went delinquent and never again became current. Contacting them to discuss settlement will not restart the clock. Paying off or settling for less than the full amount as full settlment will not start the clock. Negotiating a payment PLAN, however, CAN result in a restart. Either pay it off in full, negotiate a one time lump sum accepted as full settlement or don't pay it at all and hope that they don't try to obtain a judgement before the statute of limitations runs out.
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 05:14 am Anon: Where are you getting your "clock restarting" information?
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 05:37 am The time during which a delinquent trade line can be reported starts (give or take 180 days depending upon date) on the original delinquency date (commonly repoted as the "date of last activity" on your report(s)) or the date the account was charged-off by the creditor, which ever is most recent. A (full or partial accepted as full) settlement is just that - settlement. It's not a re-aging of the account or a reopening of the account or account activity. Your original delinquency date is remains your original delinquency date. The original delinquency date does not change just because you settled the outstanding debt. Remember - it's not ACTUALLY the "date of last activity" (what the CRA's call it on the reports) - it's the original delinquency date (see definition above again) or the date of charge off. However, if you agree to some type of payment plan (paying over time), then you are, technically and per an ammendment to the original contract (your verbal or written agreement to this "new" repayment plan), bringing the account back up to date (regular payments due on specific dates), which CAN (not WILL, but CAN) be reported as activity. Which means that the account is now technically active. And now a creditor can report it - it's a current account that just so happens to have derogatory history, even though it's current TODAY. A creditor may choose to re-age the account (start the history of the account over, beginning on the day you made the new agreement, dropping the delinquent, old stuff), but they don't HAVE to. Be sure to include this (re-aging) in your negotiations if you choose to do the repayment plan route.
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 09:08 am We need to realize that we're talking about two things that seem similar, but are not directly related. In general negative credit information can stay on your report for 7 years. For serious delinquencies this date legally starts 180 days from the date of first delinquency, but the credit reporting agencies are dispensing with the 180 days and just counting from the date of first delinquency. Paying a collection will not affect the date it ultimately falls off your credit profile. However you should not assume that your score will go up from paying off a collection or charge off. It is impossible to say how much your score will go up, if at all. It is even possible that your score will decrease because your credit problem may appear to be more recent now than it was previously.
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 05:11 pm Sean: I am so glad you touched on this subject. People always wonder (especially some mortgage brokers) about how soon a consumers credit will improve score-wise after derogs are handled or resolved. I beat my self silly :)> telling people that this simply does not happen immediately and in fact they drop temporarily. The best thing for ones credit after they resolve derog's is nothing! Complete and utter silence... Just let it sit. No INQ's, No delving into the file. Once you solve the previous problems it can take 3 to 9 months for scores to rise. BTW, I too ordered the FICO score from E-loan just to see if it was on target. Way off! About a 100 points off. Kristi F. Carreon & Assoc.
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 06:11 pm What do you mean the FICO score was 100 points off?
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| | Tuesday, March 07, 2000 - 09:23 pm The Eloan score came back at 619. I have all three individual reports in front of me from less then 15 days ago and the scores are 719, 749, and 724. What gives?. Others have said the same thing that the score they got was way off. I wonder how they are calculating them.
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 03:50 am The CRA's couldn't possibly be purposely shafting E-Loan for releasing scores to consumers, could they? A simple factor added to the matrix for any inquiries from E-Loan could be causing the 100 point discrepancy. I love conspiracy theories.
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 07:15 am Hmmm, then I guess when I scored 701 my real score was 801? Out of curiosity what was the date you checked your score with eLoan? Was it, by chance, at the beginning of the month of March? There is some indication that a person's score is higher at the end of the month than it may be at the beginning of the month.
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 07:40 am Lets see, I think it was March 3rd. I got a couple emails from others that said their scores were say 630 and eloan came back as 550. I contacted eloan but am still waiting to hear from them. I looked back over my activity and have had no changes except the INQ from eloan. Is it really possible that their INQ dropped my score that much?. Oh, I did have one change. I paid off the only credit card balance I had of 1400.00. ? confused.
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 08:21 am Kristi: I am confused. Could you explain what you meant when you said that it could take 3 to 9 months for scores to rise after derogatory information is taken off of a credit report (reference your March 7 posting.) thanks
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 08:25 am K.Feathers: I have already expressed on here my theory that a person's scores drop when the information provided on them is more than 30 days old. For example if a person's tradelines were updated on 1/2/00 they would receive one score on 1/31/00 and another, lower score on 2/2/00 even with the exact same information. Christine first brought the situation to my attention with her web page where a co-borrower's score changed even with the same information when it was first scored on 7/30/97 and rescored on 8/1/97. This led me to formulate the theory. I felt validated once I read this post by Christine McKee in which she announced that her score was in the 700s on 12/28/99 and dropped to mid 600s on 1/4/00 with no change in the underlying data. And now you have said you have reports not more than 15 days old with high scores, but when your score was pulled on 3/3/00 it was substantially lower. Apparently you also have other people whose scores were substantially lower than they expected when they inquired with eLoan. I believe you will find that all of them most likely inquired at the beginning of March as well. I believe one of the best tips for having a good FICO score is to time your inquiries to occur late in the month.
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 08:47 am Isn't that the strangest thing? And your theory seems right on. It appears as I look over other clients reports that they drop as well, as you described above. That is so inaccurate. I can understand scores rising or falling because of activity and inquiries but to fall based on the day in the month is obsurd. What's Next? PMS for the CRA. :) Thanks Sean! Kristi Feathers
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| | Wednesday, March 08, 2000 - 08:57 am Jenna: Many times people assume that removing the negative information or correcting errors will increase the score. Actually it falls and then stables out in anywhere from 3,6,9 months. That of course is assuming the information in the reports remains positive and other factors like INQ's ,additional addresses and others don't affect it. But like we have seen here today,even the date can lower scores temp. Have you visited www.creditscoring.com ? He focuses on nothing but scores and you may find the information worth reading. I don't specialize in the mechanics of scoring and liked it much better pre-scoring days :) Thanks! Kristi
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