Dolly you can research this on Google there have been plenty who have done the testing and come up with that 3-5%. But I'll give you the short of it if you are one of those individuals that can be open-minded and not convinced of themselves 
I don't mean that in a negative way
When you display a zero balance the system picks it up as a dormant account and will not give you credit on a payment history. All of the algorithms revolve around the fact that they want to see that you have a balance and they want to see how your paying. Zero balance in the cage no payment history because it's a zero balance. It's just like a car loan or any loan. While you are paying on it in the lower gets the better your debt to credit ratio becomes. And your payment history is factored into it 35%.
But when you make that last payment and pay it off? Oops, it completely disappears from the system and immediately it takes away from your debt to credit rationand your payment history is no longer a factor then it just becomes a paid off loan. Now I would argue that that's grossly unfair but it is what it is and basically what the scoring models want to see is how you pay CURRENTLY not in the past and that can only be determined when you have a balance.
If you are displaying zero balances on your credit cards I promise you you are hurting your score because how can the system determine your payment history if it's always showing a zero balance? It can't because you're not displaying any history do you understand? You have to carry a balance and again the magic number is 3 to 5% and then you will get credit for it but a zero balance makes that account dormant and yes it is factored into your debt to credit ratio, but it is NOT factored into your payment history which is 35% of your score.
Logically you can figure this out for yourself as how can you be graded on a payment history if no payment history is shown and you only have a zero balance
Yes I already mentioned that I was using the mobile version and it did not appear but then I went tonthe full version a new world opened up to me!!!
Dolly you can research this on Google there have been plenty who have done the testing and come up with that 3-5%. But I'll give you the short of it if you are one of those individuals that can be open-minded and not convinced of themselves I don't mean that in a negative way
When you display a zero balance the system picks it up as a dormant account and will not give you credit on a payment history. All of the algorithms revolve around the fact that they want to see that you have a balance and they want to see how your paying. Zero balance indicates no payment history because it's a zero balance. It's just like a car loan or any loan. While you are paying on it and the lower it gets the better your debt to credit ratio becomes. And your payment history is factored into it 35%.
But when you make that last payment and pay it off? Oops, it completely disappears from the system and immediately it takes away from your debt to credit ratio and your payment history is no longer a factor then it just becomes a paid off loan. Now I would argue that that's grossly unfair but it is what it is and basically what the scoring models want to see is how you pay CURRENTLY not in the past and that can only be determined when you have a balance.
If you are displaying zero balances on your credit cards I promise you you are hurting your score because how can the system determine your payment history if it's always showing a zero balance? It can't because you're not displaying any history do you understand? You have to carry a balance and again the magic number is 3 to 5% and then you will get credit for it but a zero balance makes that account dormant and yes it is factored into your debt to credit ratio, but it is NOT factored into your payment history which is 35% of your score.
Logically you can figure this out for yourself as how can you be graded on a payment history if no payment history is shown and you only have a zero balance
@Anonymous wrote:Yes I already mentioned that I was using the mobile version and it did not appear but then I went tonthe full version a new world opened up to me!!!
Dolly you can research this on Google there have been plenty who have done the testing and come up with that 3-5%. But I'll give you the short of it if you are one of those individuals that can be open-minded and not convinced of themselves
When you display a zero balance the system picks it up as a dormant account and will not give you credit on a payment history. All of the algorithms revolve around the fact that they want to see that you have a balance and they want to see how your paying. Zero balance indicates no payment history because it's a zero balance. It's just like a car loan or any loan. I did not say that I am not using my cards, I just do not let them report a balance, except one the optimal goal for me. So my accounts are not dormant.
But when you make that last payment and pay it off? Oops, it completely disappears from the system and immediately it takes away from your debt to credit ratio and your payment history is no longer a factor then it just becomes a paid off loan. Now I would argue that that's grossly unfair but it is what it is and basically what the scoring models want to see is how you pay CURRENTLY not in the past and that can only be determined when you have a balance. My accounts regardless if I charge $5 or $1000, and PIF before statement cuts, is not paying off my credit card in the sense of it being closed. My credit lines still factor in the debt to credit ratio
If you are displaying zero balances on your credit cards I promise you you are hurting your score because how can the system determinLe your payment history if it's always showing a zero balance? It can't because you're not displaying any history do you understand? You have to carry a balance and again the magic number is 3 to 5% and then you will get credit for it but a zero balance makes that account dormant and yes it is factored into your debt to credit ratio, but it is NOT factored into your payment history which is 35% of your score. My cards still have to report, because of usage, and payment for that month. Again, someone brought up usage and balance are two different factors when letting a CC statement cut.
Logically you can figure this out for yourself as how can you be graded on a payment history if no payment history is shown and you only have a zero balance
Logically, I can just work with the people who have geared me towards a better score and understanding on these forums, from the mods, to the veterans who analytical graph each aspect of historical and trended data in credit reports, how a store card I have is being treated as a CFA. There are several I could mention, but do not want to leave out plenty of others. At least I have an understanding of the difference of my scores, and why I'm being held back on scores from one bureau versus another.
Again we can agree to disagree.
If you're a member of myFICO, post the reason codes from the reports.
Sadly for the FICO 8 baseline there's only 2 given, though I've recently requested the MF product team add the others much like they have with every other score; however, if you see this disparity in the industry options as well (reason codes won't be one to one with the classic scores) post what you have for the FICO 8 lines.
Design goal was +/- 30 points, 50 is high admittedly, but you also mentioned you do have some minor differences between files (inquiries or?) and making the blase assertion that those can't possibly be 50 points while it may be accurate, even if they account for 20 points suddenly you're back in that 30 point design goal.
TT was exactly right in pointing out though that FICO 8 from EX is not the same as FICO 8 from EQ is not the same as FICO 8 from TU... they are different, and that's been a common complaint from lenders as well as consumers, VS 3 and FICO 9 both do it better at least.
Also payment history as far as FICO is concerned is just lack of deliquencies / derogatories. The pretty OK's or whatever don't matter in the slightest. Open date, closed date, negative or lack thereof, and tradeline type are basically the only factors. Date of last update probably too since if you don't have one of those in the past six months you don't get a FICO score period, but that's an edge or even corner case in the current discussion.
I'm exhausted But yeah well if it's true that each CRA is using the model 8 differently and it varies from CRA to CRA than that and that alone is all one really needs to know to explain the differences. I think I started off this whole thing by saying if in fact they are using a consistent model then... so if they are not then that immediately brings us back to the exact same thing as consumer based / shown proprietorial models which basically are somewhat meaningless.
God knows this industry has been screwed up enough and they have made it more than sufficiently complicated, the LEAST they could do is if they are going to come out with a different scoring model is to make everyone sticks to it in the same manner so that they can produce some consistency.
Oh well even with all the information we have it's still nothing but a big game I really wasn't following you too much when you were talking about the payment history as I was not sure if you were saying that because of my personal situation or because of the differences I had with Dolly?
The thing is this. All scoring models regardless of how they are used are made to judge amongst other things your payment history. They need to know that you are capable of carrying a balance and being able to have the ability to pay that balance back. If you have 6 credit cards and 5 shows zero balances and only 1 shows a balance then as far as the model is concerned you have only shown the ability to pay back ONE balance at that specific payment and it has nothing else to go on. For all they know if you start taking those zero balances and charging you may fall behind because you can not keep up with an additional five balances.
So it has nothing to go on in the way of payment history because it keeps showing zero balance zero balance zero balance. Everyone knows that having too much available credit can also be a negative for that exact same reason, that lenders are sometimes afraid that when you have that much available you may decide to cash in one day and get too far under and not be able to pay the balances back if you choose to utilize it all.
There was a time in the older days and now that we have all these different models I don't know if it's true anymore but there was a time that the original score models would actually subtract some points for having too much available and unused or unclaimed available credit.
So though they may say paid as agreed that's exactly precisely for the reasons that you're saying, there's no in between, you either pay it on time or your delinquent and a zero balance cannot be delinquent so of course they show paid as agrees even with a zero balance.
But no doubt not until you start using some of those balances and show the scoring model that you have the ability to pay back six different balances versus one balance at once will it start to give you credit and your score will rise quite a bit as long as you don't EVER exceed 30% and you won't get hit too hard. There's no hard and fast rules but generally speaking the lower you go starting around 30%'the better your score is going to be but there is a such thing as too much and when you get down to zero it starts to have a negative impact on your score.
The 3-5% is the absolute best of the best of the best of the best and that's that absolute perfect range that produces the highest possible score that you can get when it comes to debt to credit ratio. So when you are playing the tweaking game like I do and I look at the score atndifferent percentages and also based on extensive research on Google you will see that is the percentage that everyone needs to shoot for, the absolute golden standard. Some will say under 20%, some will say under 10%, but one thing I know for a fact, when you hit zero you just gone too far and stuck it to your own self and now you're going to start losing points.
I doubt few people have taken the time to tweak this and have spent the better part of two solid years doing nothing more than playing the debt to credit ratio game and documenting my experiences. And I can guarantee you that everything I just said above in percentages is right on the money. Others have done this to but I do not know to what extent as I read the articles by other "self proclaimed experts"' as there's no loss of information when it comes to this subject it seems nowadays just about everybody calls themself an expert and gives out advice to others on the World Wide Web!
Yes, that is exactly precisely what I'm saying. That it's best to keep balances on all your cards! The perfect scenario is 3 to 5%.
OK, I guess I thought this was more common knowledge but maybe not maybe it's my own personal system, it's possible so I will try to share this with everybody and you all can choose to listen to it and apply it or you can choose to totally ignore it. But all I can tell you is I took my scores from 550s up to 770s and it didn't take me a ridiculous amount of long time to do it I did it in a very short amount of time.
Because I sat down and thought about this logically and ignored everything and most of what everybody was telling me and my credit scores are proof of this. People have ALWAYS had a tendency to lean on other peoples knowledge instead of thinking about this on their own and not being afraid to think out-of-the-box. I can give you example after example after example in all walks of life in all areas of life at how the so-called "experts" were wrong but yet people followed them blindly off the cliff and screamed at ones like me all the way while screaming the world was flat, but NOT because THEY discovered it was flat but because of what all the other people told them and because of all the stuff they read and because of all the so-called "proof" that really they never actually knew was proof or a fact but because everyone else told them it was proof and the facts, but they never walked to the end of the earth to see if it was actually flat! LOL
There is no way in the world that any scoring model regardless of what other hundreds of people say, can grade you on a payment history if NO payment history exist!
Think about it this way. If I have six credit cards and I am carrying six balances and I am paying all six balances very promptly every month and I've never been late and I have never exceeded a "bad" debt to credit ratio what does that tell the scoring model and what does that tell a lender?
Who is PROVING they are the better credit risk the guy who is PROVING that he can pay $1000 a month in payments to six different cards or the person who has zero balances and has never proven anything to anybody? For some reason and I will never understand why people KEEP thinking that if they have a $5000 limit and they pay their balance off every single month that is the golden standard and the best of the best and what they KEEP missing consistently is that the CRA's don't have a CLUE they are paying off the balance every month and they get absolutely no credit for that transaction because by the time it gets posted to the CRA it shows zero balance.
You call the credit card company and ask for a credit line increase you will get credit for it because the actual credit card company can see that payment history. But that has nothing to do with the CRA's and a zero balance is zero balance is zero balance and as far as they are concerned you have never made one payment on it even though you may make thousands of dollars worth of payments a month. As far as they are concerned you have no payment history.
Credit scoring and having a good credit history is all about ONE thing and ONE thing only. It's about borrowing money and then showing how well you have the ability to pay it back and keyword is PAY. You are never going to be graded on how well you don't pay something back. You're not impressing anyone by showing you can get a credit card with a $10,000 limit your only impressing them by showing them that you can pay it back
In the area of payment history which represents 35% of your score you are NEVER being graded on how well you DONT spend money, and how well you DONT pay it back, you are only graded on how well you DO "use" borrowed money and PAY it back. So do you PAY your bills back on time? The guy with six credit cards is showing he has more capacity to pay larger amounts back and he has more of an established credit history because now he has six accounts that are being paid well versus one account that is being paid well.
Let me ask you something, if you have a credit report FULL of available credit but have never actually used it or paid on it then exactly how could someone come up with a payment history on you?
Do you really, seriously believe that somebody came up with a score model that used algorithms that was not the least bit concerned with your ability to, or factored in how well you PAY back a loan in an area that specifically only deals with how well you pay back a loan? And so mathematically speaking how exactly do you expect this algorithm or mathematical equation robot to be able to give you points for something that you're not even doing? It's mathematically impossible isn't it? There's no way in the world that somebody or some system can grade you on an act that hasn't even taken place! There's no way that they came up with a system that represents 35% of your total score that did not take into account how well you PAID something back and if you're not PAYING something back there is no way you can get credit for it. This area of 35% is only about one thing and one thing only and that's about how well you PAY something back. If you're not PAYING something back how can it possibly give you credit?
And so we have millions of people that have been following a false doctrine and they think like Dolly did that because they pay the balance off every month some kind of magical way the CRA is aware of this and they are getting credit for their payments but in fact they are not getting credit for anything because this Mathematical robot sees zero balance and assumes that no activity has taken place and no payments are being made.
Now don't confuse this with credit to debt ratio because there you WILL get credit for the fact that you have a zero balance but that's 30% and payment history is 35% so there's "5%" hanging out there that can be utilized to tweak your score which can be 30 or so points. I have done this and applied this to my own scores and it works flawlessly. And of course it would because I am showing the scoring model that I can pay multiple accounts back on time which makes me a better credit risk than the person who is only showing the scoring model that they can pay one account back on time.
Again please don't get confused all of this is only with in the whelms of the 35% payment area as there are other areas that you will indeed get credit for having a zero balance. But here is where it is the trade off and here is where you can really tweak your score. Because whatever points you lose by having the $300 balance versus a zero balance in the debt to credit ratio will be WELL over compensated in points on the payment history side when you show you have more accounts that you are paying on!
That's the best that I can explain it and if everybody wants to insist on the good all established away and the AZEO then by all means be my guest again I am here to help and not hinder and I'm not here to argue I'm here to try to give you information that's out of the box. And again it's becoming more and more known as there are many articles on Google about this 3 to 5%. Many articles about don't carry a zero balance.
But because people have been following something for so Long they just haven't changed with the times and you have to realize that the models are changing, algorithms are changing, and what may have been a good way to deal with it then is not a good way to deal with it now