What affect will removal of a negative item from my credit report have on my FICO score?
I recently won a battle with a collection agenecy; they are being forced to remove a negative item from my credit score. The item did not belong to me. How will my credit score be affected? Currently my score 602.
Public Comments
- Wooo! Congrats on that one! Your credit score should bounce up - how much depends on the rest of your credit report. If you have outstanding credit other than this one item, you could shoot up 100 points or more, but if there's other baggage, you might only go up 10-20 points. Good luck!
- Negative items are only one part of the information that goes into your credit score. Removing the negative item will help, but you have to pay all your bills on time all the time, you must use only a portion of your available credit and stay away from applying from new credit. The age of your credit accounts is also taken into account. It might take six months to a year of good credit behavior to get your score to 650.
- If it's 602, and you only have one negative hit on your credit, I suspect you have other issues going on. You need to get your updated credit report and very carefully examine it for errors. Don't let up on the collection agency. If their negative report resulted in the loss of a loan, or higher interest rates, you can sue them to recover that loss. I recently was in court on a different matter and watched a similar court case. They lady was suing a collection agent for damages. Due to a negative item on her report, she had a terrible time getting a home loan and ended up getting one for a lot higher interest rate then she could have. Mistake #1...she did not have enough proof to show damages. A simple letter from the mortgage lender was all she needed, but she didn't bring one. Mistake #2...by suing under the FCRA for their posting incorrect information to her report, she could easily have one $1000 in damages, but she did not add that to her lawsuit. Collection agents depend on the fact that you do NOT know and understand your rights. That is why they get away with what they do. Once you show you know the law, you will be amazed how quickly the will back off.
