[codernyc16]

I had a recent 30 day delinquent payment reduce my credit score by 80 points. And this was because the letter in the mail was mid-delivered. Not that the credit card issuer, nor the credit agencies give two shits. This was after about 5 hours of calls ping-ponging between the two.

[throwawaycert]

Credit scores change constantly. What your 80 point drop told creditors is "This person might not have enough money to pay their bills, or is careless or forgetful.". You are perceived as higher risk because, statistically, you are a higher risk. Those of us who maintain excellent credit do it in part by making sure our money gets where it's supposed to. I check online to make sure payments post, or hand in payments in person, or call in the rare case these days when there's no other way to check.

Fortunately, credit scores usually recover rather quickly from one-off delinquencies if you stay current afterward. And I bet you'll be paying more attention to your bills now, won't you?

The credit score is doing exactly what it's supposed to.

[nostrademons]

I was surprised how much they change constantly, for silly things like how much balance you have on your credit cards.

My wife & I both have excellent credit scores, and we pay all of our bills in full every month. Nevertheless, I've noticed a ~50 point swing in credit scores from month-to-month, all dependent on whether airline tickets, furniture, or charitable contributions happened to make it onto this month's bill. Our debt-to-liquid-assets ratio is something like 0.1%, so there's never any real risk of not having money to pay it off, but of course the credit bureaus don't have information about our assets, so they evaluate us against what other people our age have, which (being Millenials) is not very much.

Knowing how the system works, we can take steps to game it, like not putting any major purchases on credit card in the 3-6 months before getting a mortgage. But still, it's slightly ridiculous that something that's supposed to measure your creditworthiness can swing so much over short time periods.

[mikeash]

Foisting responsibility onto customers with more important things to worry about, rather than into organizations whose only purpose is to keep track of these things?

[kome]

> The credit score is doing exactly what it's supposed to.

policing people and make the poor to pay more.

[lonelappde]

> statistically, you

Is an oxymoron. Statistics exist when "you" is unknown.

[billh]

I've had credit card companies call me and straight up say "If you pay this right now over the phone with me and pay the $15 telephone transaction fee, this won't hit your credit report"

Between the "Pay for Delete" scams and the gamifying of your credit score through services like CreditKarma I really questions how close these scores are hitting anymore in relation to relative credit risk.

[mehrdadn]

> I've had credit card companies call me and straight up say "If you pay this right now over the phone with me and pay the $15 telephone transaction fee, this won't hit your credit report"

Does that not qualify as extortion?

[mehrdadn]

This doesn't solve the problem that already happened, but I would take this as a sign that it might not be a bad idea to just opt into e-statements and avoid snail mail. The world is electronic now. If nothing else, you'll at least save some carbon, paper, etc. from being consumed along the way.

[ryanmercer]

I have autopay set up on my Google store Synchrony account, this last bill, for whatever reason, it did not attempt to withdrawal the money then sent me an email saying I was overdue and I now had to pay DOUBLE so I did manually, two days later I get an email saying my adjusted auto-pay had applied.

Guess what popped up on my report this week?

A late payment.

It does not let you pick the autopay date, and instead puts it on the date the bill is due, otherwise I'd have it auto pay at the first of the month weeks before it was due. However, it is not worth my time to call and probably have to deal with a call center for an hour before I get someone that will promise to remove it and then have to write three letters to send off to the CRBs to dispute it and wait another couple of months for it to possibly get removed.

[harryh]

Your anecdote is interesting but does not constitute data on the overall predictive powers of credit scores.

[zonidjan]

It does when millions of people have similar anecdotes, and when the system is literally set up for it.

Places can report whatever they want to. And you can dispute it, but the person who report it will just say "no, we're right" and it'll stay up.