Mortgage and Insurance

After 3 and a half years of credit repair, responsible credit use, and a perfect payment history, I have seen little change to my credit score. Even after pulling my free annual credit reports and my myFICO report, I am still perplexed and hope someone can give me a little insight (or as much as is possible given the proprietary nature of it all).

 

myFico gives these reasons:

 

1. You have a collection and a serious delinquency

 

It says I have 1 account over 60 days late or worse and have a number of collection. I do have 5 collections but the most recent is was over 3 years ago. I am currently waiting on a response to a PFD on this one. The others are literally months from falling off and I thought if they weren’t within 2 years they wouldn’t have such a negative impact? The serious delinquency is what I have a problem with and I will discuss this below.

 

2. You have a short credit history

 

The average age is 11 years, 7 months but the AAoA is 4 years and there isn’t anything I can do about that.

 

3. You have a recent collection

 

This is the same one mentioned above at 3 years, 1 month ago.  A very costly oversight on my part. OC wouldn’t let me PIF even though it was only 30 days late. But again, isn’t it old enough to not not be impacting my score so heavily?

 

4. You recently missed a payment or had a derogatory indicator reported on your credit report

 

But it says it was 6 years, 6 months ago! Is this what Eq considers recent???

 

 

But my main problem is Portfolio Recovery Assets. I had a vehicle repossessed almost 6 years ago and it looks like they may have bought the old “alleged” debt. On my CRs they are listed under “Accounts” with the rest of my open and closed accounts in good standing. This is the deliquency I believe myFICO is referring to. There are no others. Even though the description shows collections they are reporting a 120+ days late! Can they do that? None of the other collections report this way, they are all listed under the collections heading. Not to mention they are reporting a last payment which of course I’ve never sent them. And lastly they are calling themselves a “factoring company” and from what I understand that definition is reserved for companies who buy debt while it is still in good standing, not in default. Is this another shady tactic to confuse consumers? 

If you have gotten this far, well, thanks for taking the time. If I could sum it all up in 3 questions they would be:

1. Do you think the way in which Portfolio Recovery Associates are reporting could be what is keeping my score from going up? (It was a joint account and every month when the CA tacks on interest it and updates it actually drops my DH’s score…it’s happened repeatedly. Should a 5 yr old CO cause that?)

 

2. When a lender reviews my credit, does the almost 4 years of flawless credit count for more than the 3 years of irresponsibility before it?

2. When does a negative item become old enough to hurt your score less?