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My little FICO CC experiment - PHASE 1 complete

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webhopper
Moderator Emeritus

Re: My little FICO CC experiment


@SoulMaster wrote:

Like I said, this is an experiment, and it's testing two theories at once:

 

1.  A single creditor whom you do pay interest to on a high(er)-balance is more likely than not to give the CLI.  (I know, C1 is stingy w/ CLI's, but that's why they're perfect to est this with... also, the most common CLI on a Disco is "a high-balance reported" usually acompanied with "I forgot to PIF before the statement cut".  Search these boards, you'll see it).

 

2.  I firmly believe that a high balance, paid off over time (rather than all at once) WILL help your score more than PIF every month.  It may not seem possible, but I can tell you that I've seen a full, actual credit report (the kinds you can't buy) and there is a whole stack more info on there than what we see. I believe this is why no one can reverse engineer a true FICO. (with enough full reports, and enough data, this should be possible... yet Fair Issac guards the formula as a non-patented trade-secret.  They MUST, therefore, have more data than what a consumer sees when they pull a report).

 

To answer your interest question, the grand total interest I will pay during this little expiriment is about 8 bucks.  The card I used has 1% cash back, which gave me 9.72.  In my book that's a wash.  More importantly, $8 isn't going to kill me so it's worth it for my expiriment.

 

Koop.  I know that there's no secret short cut, but I'm a scientist at hart... I come up with a hypothesis, test it, and examine the results.  It's just part of my nature, and this is one of those simple tests that really doesn't take too much effort to test my theory.  I'll admit whole-heartedly, that every single one of the responses so far might be spot-on... and if you'all are right, I'll come back and post that result, too with a helping of crow.

 

Finally, thanks for the replies so far... I may be off my gord entirely, but like I said, $8 and no sweat to test this, so I'm moving forward with it.  One thing that led me to want to run this test is the "High Balance" column on the report.  If you get a new card, and in the second-or-third month (so that your FICO stabilizes on the new account) run it up to say $1500, then PIF before the statement cuts, it will still report that your high-balance was $1500.  Note: I've seen scores drop a few points because of this, when you'd expect them to stay the same.  The util has stayed at zero, but the card has activity besides that.

 

Back before TRW became Experian, I had the opportunity to go work on their DB's... I turned it down after seeing the spec of the project, you wouldn't believe how much info they actually have on you... if you want to be REALLY scared, take a look at a full Lexis-Nexis report.  Those databases I have worked on, and I've still got no clue how they collect that stuff (there's even stuff in there from before the internet, like grade-school records from the 70's).

 

Cheers!

 

-SM


Discover always gives me an Auto CLI after I have let a balance revolve for several months...  like 6-12 months... and then suddenly PIF...   Initial CL on Discover was 1000... it was increased to 1200 then 1500, then 2600, then 3500, now at 4200....    I just paid for a cruise using the Discover, and I plan to let it revolve one month then PIF next month.  I'm hoping for a CLI that will put me over 5k on Discover.

FICO 9:
Filed Chapter 13 on 6/1/2017 after job loss. Discharged 6/1/2022.

Goal: Gardening!


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