YMMV

[sarge12]

In actual practice through years of experience I have a pretty good idea what my scores will do if I take a certain credit action with MY credit profile. It does not necessarily equate to someone elses credit profile. It is more of an art than a science. So if you were to have a similar profile...it still may not work for you.

[longtimelurker]

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@Gidgetmom wrote:

Regardless of how the advice is written here, I have always read it as YMMV.  Without anyone knowing the exact algorithms that go into the Fico scoring model, all we have is everyone's opinions, educated guesses and experiences.   Nothing in this forum should be taken as an absolute....just a "here's what happened to me".  

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Agree, people here are not the decision makers for the issuers.   To my mind, it's not a whole lot different from hearing from somewhere (friend, internet, program etc) "Team X is gpomg to win the Superbowl next year."    It would be unwise to stake a large amount of money on that, and complain if it doesn't turn out that way!

Somewhat to be expected, the least conditioned advice often comes from the least experienced: understandably they are excited about finally getting the CLI or the "prime" card, and share THE way to do it, without being aware of all the variations.

I would like to think that the negative advice is much less YMMV, e.g. if you get a customer-initiated CLI from Amex, it's extremely unlikely that asking less than 180 days will be successful.   On the other hand, I would have said something similar about waiting a year/13 months before being able to transfer a limit from an Amex card, and recent posts suggest that is no longer true.

So, always understand the implicit YMMV!

[kdm31091]

The thing with credit is that we are not privy to all of the information on how creditors operate -- how do they decide CLIs? How do they determine who gets approved and who doesn't? We generally know the major exclusions (no recent derogs, Chase 5/24, Citi 24 months between bonuses, whatever) but the nuances aren't easy to predict. There are some things we can say doing A will equal B, but many things aren't as clear and never will be.

Similarly, with FICO, while we know "factors", we are not told the complete formula behind scoring.

With everything credit related, take it with a grain of salt. Don't follow the herd expecting the same result. Do your own homework and decide what makes sense for you. That's the only person you have to justify it to. You don't have to apply for a card just because everyone else is. Maybe it doesn't suit your spend and that's okay. While it can be great to hear of other people getting approved, don't let it influence you into things you don't want or need.

[Gidgetmom]

All I was trying to say is...regardless of the way it is posted, one should read it as YMMV.  I agree that it is not always posted that way.   This is an important discussion and I agree that many posts don't preface with the YMMV or IMO fact.  It's important that newcomers realize the YMMV fact when studying the forums.   Kudos to the OP for getting out there.  Hopefully, newbies will read it! 😉

[Anonymous]

Someone' signature is not their **bleep** Credit profile. Someone's approval share is a one-time occurrence/experience with that one lender. How many times have you seen where they get an approval and they're pulling a last month's record? Knowledge and following trends will put you in a good fighting position but copying what someone else did even step by step is YMMV all the way.

[Anonymous]

Our posts here are meant to help add to a thread's information, not to judge or say we have all the answers that apply to someone. We all just add our two cents and the posting OP can decide which information is helpful.

One of the values of the forums are all the varied experiences. By adding our individual experiences it gives a lot of input. I love that about everyone's posts. It gives me perspective. We get to know each other here in many ways and occasionally will laugh together.  

OP, your post is a good reminder to all of us to make sure the tone of our posts are helpful and kind. We are not here to judge each other, but to help. This forum has been incredibly helpful to me with so many questions and issues in my rebuld. I will be forever grateful.  Thanks for your post.

[Gidgetmom]

Very well said, Musiclover!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Our posts here are meant to help add to a thread's information, not to judge or say we have all the answers that apply to someone. We all just add our two cents and the posting OP can decide which information is helpful.

One of the values of the forums are all the varied experiences. By adding our individual experiences it gives a lot of input. I love that about everyone's posts. It gives me perspective. We get to know each other here in many ways and occasionally will laugh together.  

OP, your post is a good reminder to all of us to make sure the tone of our posts are helpful and kind. We are not here to judge each other, but to help. This forum has been incredibly helpful to me with so many questions and issues in my rebuld. I will be forever grateful.  Thanks for your post.

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+1 Musiclover. Could not agree more.

[sjt]

I think you need to realize that folks here are sharing their experience for data points and they realize in most cases its a YMMV type of thing. However, there is alot of infomration that is not a YMMV and more of "heads up" to all.