this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Equifax wiped out his credit score — and a little-known policy means he can't get it back (www.cbc.ca)
submitted 3 days ago by RandAlThor to c/canada
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Equifax refused to restore his credit score or explain why it dropped to zero, until Go Public started asking questions.

Only then did the company point to its little-known policy: If a credit file sits inactive, the consumer may be labelled "unscoreable" and their score reset to zero. Tregear says the last time he checked, before it disappeared, his score was around a more respectable 700.

Go Public has since found a major flaw in consumer protection rules — that there are no laws or oversight on how credit scores are calculated, leaving credit bureaus to do what they want.

Consumer advocate Geoff White says that gives credit bureaus too much power, with no transparency.

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[–] skozzii 8 points 3 days ago (3 children)

If you fully pay off a debt that negatively impacted your credit, once paid, it should no longer hurt your score.

Credit scores should only be negatively impacted if you don't pay it back, and they have to write it off or take collective action.

I have seen too many credit scores ruined by a few missed payments and its very silly.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago

This is not that. He didn't miss any payments. They just said "Hmm, looks like you haven't used your credit in a while. We're just gonna go ahead and set your score to zero then."

[–] Daryl 1 points 3 days ago

There are time limits built in to the algorithm for calculating your score, that are there because of the agencies themselves and by legislation. Even the negative effects of a bankruptcy completely clear after a given amount of time. One suspects, in fact, if this person DID have negative factors affecting their credit, it would not have been reset to zero. There would have been a timer clicking away to keep feeding the account algorithm with fresh data.

[–] tleb -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I have seen too many credit scores ruined by a few missed payments and its very silly.

Very unlikely unless they already had a shaky credit history.

I closed my oldest credit card a bit ago, and it just dented my score by 30 for a few months before rebounding. I also missed a payment once (thought I had auto pay on, I didn't) and as far as I remember it didn't change my score.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Very unlikely unless they already had a shaky credit history.

The article says different.

I also missed a payment once (thought I had auto pay on, I didn't) and as far as I remember it didn't change my score.

You have to miss two payments (of any kind, not just a credit card) within a 12-month period for it to affect your credit score.

[–] tleb 0 points 3 days ago

You have to miss two payments (of any kind, not just a credit card) within a 12-month period for it to affect your credit score.

Yes of course it would, why wouldn't it? If they couldn't recover/rebound from that, then their history is already iffy