Credit Score Peculiarity

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I've mentioned on here a few times that I gave a house back to the bank last year via deed-in-lieu. Long story, but I moved for my job, old house was massively underwater (didn't even realize it), tried to rent it out for a year (DISASTER!!!), finally couldn't pay all the bills, quit paying for about 18 months, got several offers for a short sale (bank rejected them all), then finally last September the bank signed off on my offer of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Anyway, I basically accepted once I quite paying on that mortgage back in April 2012 that my credit score would be shot for the foreseeable future. That definitely seemed to be the case after the deed-in-lieu went through in Sept 2013. Just for kicks, I tried to sign up for a Fidelity Amex card with 2% cashback rewards later that month, and the guy literally hung up on me when he ran my credit check.

That was pretty much what I was expecting. I even started getting ridiculous credit offers from sleazy companies in the mail (Borrow $2000 for only 40% APR!!!)

Fast forward to last month. I have had a Capital One rewards card for 10 years, and they just started offering free credit score tracking. I couldn't resist, so I signed up. Much to my surprise, my credit score was a 740, less than a freaking year after 18 months of missed payments and a deed-in-lieu!. Granted, I have 12 years of completely spotless credit history aside from that one mortgage, but a 740 almost puts me in the "excellent" credit category. I was not prepared for that.

I guess my point is, How bad must the average creditor's payment history be for someone with my history to be so far above average? I'm still a little shocked. But to celebrate, I signed up for a new Barclaycard Mastercard with the $444.44 sign-up bonus yesterday. Yay for free money! :-D

[Daleth]

Which credit bureau does Cap One get its info from? Is the house problem reported on that one? There are three credit bureaux and if you get your report from each of them you'll see their info (debts, judgments etc) reported don't match, and neither do their scores. That may be what's going on here.

[Gin1984]

I've mentioned on here a few times that I gave a house back to the bank last year via deed-in-lieu. Long story, but I moved for my job, old house was massively underwater (didn't even realize it), tried to rent it out for a year (DISASTER!!!), finally couldn't pay all the bills, quit paying for about 18 months, got several offers for a short sale (bank rejected them all), then finally last September the bank signed off on my offer of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Anyway, I basically accepted once I quite paying on that mortgage back in April 2012 that my credit score would be shot for the foreseeable future. That definitely seemed to be the case after the deed-in-lieu went through in Sept 2013. Just for kicks, I tried to sign up for a Fidelity Amex card with 2% cashback rewards later that month, and the guy literally hung up on me when he ran my credit check.

That was pretty much what I was expecting. I even started getting ridiculous credit offers from sleazy companies in the mail (Borrow $2000 for only 40% APR!!!)

Fast forward to last month. I have had a Capital One rewards card for 10 years, and they just started offering free credit score tracking. I couldn't resist, so I signed up. Much to my surprise, my credit score was a 740, less than a freaking year after 18 months of missed payments and a deed-in-lieu!. Granted, I have 12 years of completely spotless credit history aside from that one mortgage, but a 740 almost puts me in the "excellent" credit category. I was not prepared for that.

I guess my point is, How bad must the average creditor's payment history be for someone with my history to be so far above average? I'm still a little shocked. But to celebrate, I signed up for a new Barclaycard Mastercard with the $444.44 sign-up bonus yesterday. Yay for free money! :-D

Do you have a link for that cc?

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Which credit bureau does Cap One get its info from? Is the house problem reported on that one? There are three credit bureaux and if you get your report from each of them you'll see their info (debts, judgments etc) reported don't match, and neither do their scores. That may be what's going on here.

They get their info from TransUnion. I got an "A" under "payment history" for making 93% of my payments on time. The 7% are the missed mortgage payments I assume. I am pretty sure that the info is right, because I did pull my credit report (not credit score) from all 3 bureaus late last year, and all of them had the correct info on the late payments and deed-in-lieu. I'm really just surprised by how quickly my credit score recovered.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I've mentioned on here a few times that I gave a house back to the bank last year via deed-in-lieu. Long story, but I moved for my job, old house was massively underwater (didn't even realize it), tried to rent it out for a year (DISASTER!!!), finally couldn't pay all the bills, quit paying for about 18 months, got several offers for a short sale (bank rejected them all), then finally last September the bank signed off on my offer of a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

Anyway, I basically accepted once I quite paying on that mortgage back in April 2012 that my credit score would be shot for the foreseeable future. That definitely seemed to be the case after the deed-in-lieu went through in Sept 2013. Just for kicks, I tried to sign up for a Fidelity Amex card with 2% cashback rewards later that month, and the guy literally hung up on me when he ran my credit check.

That was pretty much what I was expecting. I even started getting ridiculous credit offers from sleazy companies in the mail (Borrow $2000 for only 40% APR!!!)

Fast forward to last month. I have had a Capital One rewards card for 10 years, and they just started offering free credit score tracking. I couldn't resist, so I signed up. Much to my surprise, my credit score was a 740, less than a freaking year after 18 months of missed payments and a deed-in-lieu!. Granted, I have 12 years of completely spotless credit history aside from that one mortgage, but a 740 almost puts me in the "excellent" credit category. I was not prepared for that.

I guess my point is, How bad must the average creditor's payment history be for someone with my history to be so far above average? I'm still a little shocked. But to celebrate, I signed up for a new Barclaycard Mastercard with the $444.44 sign-up bonus yesterday. Yay for free money! :-D

Do you have a link for that cc?

Sure thing. It's the Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MasterCard. The signup bonus shows $400, but they give you 10% back every time you use their rewards for travel credits, so it works out to $444.44. I used MMM's link to throw a little $$$ his way. It's the least I can do for his awesome blog and forum :)

[Oscar_C]

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Do you have a link for that cc?
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I agree, there is nothing wrong for another way to check my score, especially when I while can churn some more cash back for (used) college textbooks.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Did you get your free credit report from all 3 agencies? Maybe you had a big adverse event from the past drop off your score in between then and last month.

Yes and no.

I did pull my credit report (not credit score) from all 3 bureaus late last year, and all of them had the correct info on the late payments and deed-in-lieu

I have 12 years of completely spotless credit history aside from that one mortgage

There are probably millions of Americans who, like me, got their shit together after getting smacked down by the recession. I know for a fact that I am a better credit risk now that I was when I took out that mortgage, so it makes sense to me. I just didn't really expect the credit bureaus to actually be sensible.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Weird. That is mysterious. I think my score was around 780 prior to defaulting on the mortgage. I have no clue what it dropped to immediately afterwards.

[MrsPete]

Here's another oddity -- and a reason why I don't believe credit scores are a number we should pursue as a good thing:

Some 10-15 years ago we financed a car (last thing we ever financed), and the guy who was handling our paperwork commented, "Huh, we don't see many of these -- you have literally a perfect credit score."  Okay, so we felt pretty good about ourselves.

Fast forward to today, we are MUCH more financially secure:  We can pay cash for cars, we live in a paid-for house, we have more money in the bank and in investments, our children are almost out the door and we're paying for their college educations out of current earnings rather than savings.  And my husband -- having heard a story about a colleague whose identity was stolen -- checked our credit scores.  They'd taken a nose dive.  Upon investigation, we found it was because we no longer owed anything to anyone.  We had longer work histories, longer bank histories, more financial stability . . . but because we were no longer making payments to anyone except the electric company and the phone company, we are considered less credit worthy.

What a business!   

[paddedhat]

I had a similar situation regarding lack of use. We haven't had a balance on anything in years, and the score was stuck at 780ish for several years. I started doing a high volume of purchasing (1-5K a month) at Lowes, for my business. I opened a Lowes charge specifically for the 5% discount, while still paying in full every month. The score shot up to 820 quickly. Given the ability to play CCs for rewards and how it keep the score pumped up, it seems pretty silly not to do it. Particularly since it can have effect on things like car insurance rates, and other issues.