Periodically Fair Isaac updates their FICO model. The most recent of these updates is called FICO ’08. The first version of FICO ’08 was publicized in 2008, but due to technical and legal issues it was not fully rolled out until the end of 2009. Generally these changes should be helpful to your credit repair efforts. Here is an overview of the changes:
- Collections for debts with original amounts under $100 will no longer be considered in your credit score. This is a welcome change for anyone who has been surprised by a sudden score drop due to small and possibly unanticipated issues like collections for medical bills, parking tickets, or library fines.
- Isolated derogatory events now carry less weight in the calculation of scores. This is great news for those in credit repair programs who will see even better results from their efforts as their good credit begins to eclipse old derogatory information.
- Even more emphasis has been placed on the relationship between credit card balances and their limits. As we have stressed it is critical to manage your credit card balances carefully.
- The treatment of Authorized User accounts has been updated to block abusive brokered accounts. Authorized user accounts can still provide a nice and legitimate boost to your credit repair progress, as long as they are used properly as described in the next section of the tutorial.