Mystery of the Vanishing Credit Score

Up and Gone

So there you are, right in the middle of an otherwise wonderfully effective credit repair program and your credit score vanishes. Up and gone. Your first reaction is that something must be wrong. The whole point was to improve your scores, not make them vanish.

No Worry

Chances are there is nothing wrong at all. You probably just fell off the FICO radar screen due to a lack of open active accounts, and your lack of a score is just a brief respite on the way to your credit goals.

The Minimum Requirements

FICO has certain minimum requirements you must meet in order to have a score. If you fall short of these requirements, even by a little bit, your credit report will not generate a score.

From myFICO.com:

There’s really not much to it; in order for a FICO® score to be calculated, a credit report must contain these minimum requirements:

• At least one account that has been open for six months or more
• At least one undisputed account that has been reported to the credit bureau with in the past six months
• No indication of deceased on the credit report (Please note: if you share an account with another person this may affect you if the other account holder is reported deceased).

The Tipping Point

If the removal, or dispute, of an account causes you to fall short of the minimum requirements you will (at least for the moment) have no score! The good news is that as soon as the content of your report includes the necessary requirements your score will instantly return.

Getting on the Right Track

If you are a customer of ours you already know that we emphasize the importance of building open active accounts. If you start our program with no open credit cards we will ask you to open two new small secured cards to insure you meet FICO’s minimum requirements, and more importantly, are on your way to great credit scores!