EXPERIAN FICO SCORE WENT DOWN 3 POINTS NOT SURE WHY, HELP

[Anonymous]

In time it will actually get MORE frustrating as FICO "gotchas" come out of the woodwork, but after a few years as your profile ages nicely, you will stop caring.  The rule for people with high-ish FICO scores is to ignore any changes under a 5% swing (25 points or so) because it starts to become an obsession but when you're over 760 points, nothing really matters in those swings.

My scores swing +/- 10 points pretty much weekly.  They go down 8 points today, then up 8 points in 5 days, etc.  It's almost comical.  As long as my trend line is showing my score going up, I'm happy.  I no longer try to micromanage a few points here or there!

The Alliant SSL is almost free in terms of FICO -- with no inquiries, the only thing it dings is your AAoA and that recovers so quickly with just patience.  Since it only costs you $44 secured + $5 membership deposit + $8 in interest, and after 5 years you get all of it back except the interest, it's the best FICO boost deal in the galaxy.  Do it now if you can afford tying up $500 for a few weeks, you may get it to report on September's CRAs!  I believe they report their balance on the first or last day of the month.

[Anonymous]

Thank you once again, just to double check if I have the correct website, since there are eligibility parameters, Since I am not retired nor living in Chicago, the only thing that may qualify me to become a member is to donate to their affiliated Charity:

[Anonymous]

Whoops, I forgot about that cost!  Yes, that is what most people do.  I have an Alliant branch literally walking distance from me, so I forgot about eligibility, sorry about that!

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for confirming, at least I know i'm on the right website. I will go through the process and will update this thread once I have it all set up. One thing you mentioned is that setting up the loan now will affect my AAoA, my question is should I wait until after I try to increase my CL with AMEX this month, it's pratically a week away from eligibility. I wouldn't want to bring the age down to where I could affect my chances of possibly getting an increase. I mean, I still see it as a long shot getting the full 3X from AMEX but there's no hurt in going for it. So would you suggest me waiting to get file the request for the CLI and then app for the Secured loan later on or would that really matter?

[Anonymous]

It will affect your AAoA when it reports.  If you apply this month, it may not report until September or even October.  So it won't affect your CLI request at all.  No hard inquiries have been reported, and it won't report as a new account for 1-2 months!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It will affect your AAoA when it reports.  If you apply this month, it may not report until September or even October.  So it won't affect your CLI request at all.  No hard inquiries have been reported, and it won't report as a new account for 1-2 months!

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Thank you, I just donated to FCS so I will sign up for membership to set up the secured loan. Thank you so much again for everything ABCD2199. I will update you once everything is in place. Have a good rest of the day.

[Anonymous]

Awesome!  It should be really helpful for you -- definitely read the SSL Technique thread and post any questions here I'm sure we can help answer them.  It's a fast process once approved and funded, so knock it out before the end of the month and with any luck they may report quickly for September and you'll see an immediate FICO 08 boost.

[Anonymous]

Thank you and I will definitely post any questions that I have on this thread. It's funny, because, the agent from Experian kept saying that a Soft Pull affects your credit score, and kept telling her that it won't and she said that regardless whether or not an inquiry is a hard or soft pull it affects your credit score. And this is a person that works at Experian. I guess she got frustrated with me since I kept opposing her on her theory that she said, I should speak to a credit advisor and go to my bank for advise, and for what? To pay more money? I'm glad that I am finding the answers that I am getting here, so again thank you for all that you guys do here for newbies like myself.

[Anonymous]

I've been helping people for many years with credit boosting, and my #1 rule to everyone is never, ever, ever call the CRAs or your bank if you can do it in writing.

I have witnessed HORROR stories from people talking to the CRAs over the phone.  Total gut wrenching mind blowing horror stories.  Those people are not there to serve you.  They really aren't.

Keep your communications with the CRAs to USPS letters written, and make sure they're written very clearly!

FICO scoring is secret.  No one really knows how it works exactly except for the few people who work at FICO in the scoring department, and they're all under NDA so they can't talk about it.  Most bankers have no clue about it.

I consulted with a mega bank for many years and one of the heads of underwriting there is a very good friend of mine.  He's seen millions of FICO scores in his management career and even he said he has no clue about it sometimes, and he's an analytical math Ph.D.

We share data points in order to refine our theories, but even with all of the great data points here, sometimes FICO just acts strangely.  The biggest secret part is the "scorecard" or "bucketing" portion of FICO scoring.  No one has an accurate clue about that!

[Anonymous]

I quickly realized that CRA's are there to make money out of you rather than helping you with your history, which is why they keep every trade secrets, because they want everyone to go through these ups and downs to lure you into buying a $20 CRA report which I just did with MyFico since I was curios to see if the decrease also affected my TU. But the reports they gave me was the same report they issued back in July. They won't give me a refund and not even a credit for it since they claim that it's a real time pull from the CRA. I do appreciate Credit Karma despite the occasional inaccuracies. Oh well. I think I invest more on watching my reports improve over everything else, and the habit is starting to get exhausting. Journey to credit is indeed a game of patience.