To Many / Few Accounts With Balances

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this is the right place or if I should post this in a FICO is Crazy forum ...

Pulled EQ & TU FICO scores yesterday and in the EQ list of things which have a negative effect on my score it states "Too many accounts with a balance."  TU makes no mention of that.

Crazy thing is that of 14 EQ TLs, only 4 carry a balance and of 13 on TU 4 also carry a balance.  Why does FICO state with EQ too many carry a balance but not on TU?  That seems very inconsistent.

Actually, the only reason those 4 accounts carry a balance is because everything else is paid off well before statements cut.  I only allow those 4 to carry a balance (which is ultimately PIF when statement cuts) because one time Citibank tried to decline me with the lame excuse of "No accounts with a balance" and one time BoA (i.e. Satan himself) tried to decline me with "Too few accounts with a balance."  Just WTF is wrong with that picture when creditors say having accounts with a balance is good yet FICO says it is bad?

[Red1Blue]

Unless you are looking for new loan or credit, I would not worry about this message. Keep 2-3 accounts with small balances and rest of them payoff as soon as you can.

[Anonymous]

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@Red1Blue wrote:

Unless you are looking for new loan or credit, I would not worry about this message. Keep 2-3 accounts with small balances and rest of them payoff as soon as you can.

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Thanks!  That is what I usually do.

I just wonder why FICO says "too many" and Citibank says "too few." 

[jefftca925]

It depends on the lender's criteria requirements for that type of credit request.  You will also find a difference of "opinion" regarding your scores depending on which CB is providing the info.  I use Identity Guard for my monitoring service and each bureaus has it's own score sensitivity scale.  My EQ and EX scores are pretty close but the score can be affected by different triggers.  One rates accounts with balances with more sensitivity than the other. Why they do it this way I have no idea.  But I'll tell you one thing... NONE of them like those "new accounts".  OOPS!! 

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

...Crazy thing is that of 14 EQ TLs, only 4 carry a balance and of 13 on TU 4 also carry a balance.  Why does FICO state with EQ too many carry a balance but not on TU?  That seems very inconsistent.

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Probably because TU has something that it wants to fuss at you about more.

How many negatives are you showing these days --2? 3? "Too many accounts with balances" is probably the next one down on TU's list, and it just doesn't display.

Each CRA commissions its own FICO scoring formula, and each one is different in what factors more heavily. Slight differences, maybe, but they're there. Also, if your TU report is different in any way from your EQ report, that probably resulted in a different order, too.

[Anonymous]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

...Crazy thing is that of 14 EQ TLs, only 4 carry a balance and of 13 on TU 4 also carry a balance.  Why does FICO state with EQ too many carry a balance but not on TU?  That seems very inconsistent.

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Probably because TU has something that it wants to fuss at you about more.

How many negatives are you showing these days --2? 3? "Too many accounts with balances" is probably the next one down on TU's list, and it just doesn't display.

Each CRA commissions its own FICO scoring formula, and each one is different in what factors more heavily. Slight differences, maybe, but they're there. Also, if your TU report is different in any way from your EQ report, that probably resulted in a different order, too.

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-3 on EQ and -2 on TU.  And that's another thing.  Everything is identical except for the Macy's Visa not reporting on TU.  How does that account for a 25 point score difference?

I always thought FICO scoring formula was the same across all CRAs.  I didn't realize each CRA had their own separate FICO formula.  Sort of makes FICO only an OEM manufacturer.

[Anonymous]

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@jefftca925 wrote:

It depends on the lender's criteria requirements for that type of credit request.  You will also find a difference of "opinion" regarding your scores depending on which CB is providing the info.  I use Identity Guard for my monitoring service and each bureaus has it's own score sensitivity scale.  My EQ and EX scores are pretty close but the score can be affected by different triggers.  One rates accounts with balances with more sensitivity than the other. Why they do it this way I have no idea.  But I'll tell you one thing... NONE of them like those "new accounts".  OOPS!! 

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Got that right!

By the way, for just how long do the FICO gods label an account as "new"?

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

-3 on EQ and -2 on TU.  And that's another thing.  Everything is identical except for the Macy's Visa not reporting on TU.  How does that account for a 25 point score difference?

I always thought FICO scoring formula was the same across all CRAs.  I didn't realize each CRA had their own separate FICO formula.  Sort of makes FICO only an OEM manufacturer.

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I'm assuming that since you only have 2 negatives on TU, it has the 25-point higher score, right?

How new is the Macy's? And does it report a balance?

Equifax seems to be way more sensitive to balances, even when util is quite low. And do you have a mortgage? Back when we used to argue back and forth about which CRA "likes" what, it seems like the theory was that TU was less perturbed by no mortgage. But I don't trust my memory on that, and I also don't particularly trust the conclusions we were reaching at the time.

[Anonymous]

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

-3 on EQ and -2 on TU.  And that's another thing.  Everything is identical except for the Macy's Visa not reporting on TU.  How does that account for a 25 point score difference?

I always thought FICO scoring formula was the same across all CRAs.  I didn't realize each CRA had their own separate FICO formula.  Sort of makes FICO only an OEM manufacturer.

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I'm assuming that since you only have 2 negatives on TU, it has the 25-point higher score, right?

How new is the Macy's? And does it report a balance?

Equifax seems to be way more sensitive to balances, even when util is quite low. And do you have a mortgage? Back when we used to argue back and forth about which CRA "likes" what, it seems like the theory was that TU was less perturbed by no mortgage. But I don't trust my memory on that, and I also don't particularly trust the conclusions we were reaching at the time.

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Yeah, my EQ is 726 and TU 762.  Mortgages dropped a long, long time ago.  Macy's Visa had its first birthday four days ago.  It never reports a balance.  I only have 4 this month that report a balance and they are the same on each CRA.

By the way, how many accounts should you let report a balance each month?

Also, is a HELOC considered revolving or mortgage?