How many points are inquiries worth?

[masscredit]

Cap1 pulled my EQ when I apped for one of their cards at the end of January last year. That was the only inquiry on there. It reached the one year mark this past week. Yesterday I received a Score Watch alert and found that my EQ08 score gained 4 points. I don't see anything else that would have caused the increase. I have to wait until the end of this month to see what my EQ04 score looks like. It lost 4 points after that app so I want to see if it gets them back. Just checked TU. No change to that one. 

Has anyone really determined how many points inquiries are worth? 

[Anonymous]

4-5 points seems to be the rule of thumb that many people find.  It's quite possible that the penalty is scorecard dependent.  For example, someone who has a very thin, very young profile might find that the inquiry impact is substantially higher than it would be for a person with an old profile with many accounts. 

Bear in mind that the scoring waters get muddied if, at the same time that an inquiry turns 1 year old, the age of your youngest account is also turning one year old.  Those are different scoring factors. 

Note that the veterans here (as I understand them) conjecture that inquiries are actually scored via a "step" function.  Here's an example of how the algorithm designers might implement it:

0-1 inquiries: No scoring penalty

2-3: Minus 5 points

4-5: Minus 5 more points

6-7: Minus 5 more points

8-10: Minus 5 more points

11-14: Minus 5 more points

15 or more: Minus 5 more points

That's just a made up example.  Nobody knows exactly how a step function might be written.

Finally each CRA implements each version of FICO slightly differently, even if the model is supposed to be exactly the same.

Thus all of the following can cause inquiries to be scored differently:

      Which model?

      Which scorecard you are in, in that model?

      Which CRA has implemented the model?

      The total number of inquiries (placing you at a different place in a step function)

Hope that helps.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@masscredit wrote:

Cap1 pulled my EQ when I apped for one of their cards at the end of January last year. That was the only inquiry on there. It reached the one year mark this past week. Yesterday I received a Score Watch alert and found that my EQ08 score gained 4 points. I don't see anything else that would have caused the increase. I have to wait until the end of this month to see what my EQ04 score looks like. It lost 4 points after that app so I want to see if it gets them back. Just checked TU. No change to that one. 

Has anyone really determined how many points inquiries are worth? 

---

No.

It varies a great deal, depending on one's profile, and on how many inquiries one already has.

[JLK93]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

0-1 inquiries: No scoring penalty

2-3: Minus 5 points

4-5: Minus 5 more points

6-7: Minus 5 more points

8-10: Minus 5 more points

11-14: Minus 5 more points

15 or more: Minus 5 more points 

---

This is completely inaccurate information. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person who has ever done anything approaching a comprehensive study of inquiries. I watched my inquiries aging off over a period of a year. Each inquiry was scored individually. Multiple times I have watched inquiries go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0. I'm also the only person to do any sort of study on buffering and deduplication of credit card inquiries. I consider myself qualified to make some conclusions about the scoring of inquiries. Conjecture by "forum veterans" about a step function is not necessary.

In all my observations I have never seen any evidence of a step function. Even if it exists, to a limited extent, for certain profiles, there is no reason to tell people that it is the norm. It is certainly not.

Everyone is free to use the search function and see for themselves that there was never any testing in the past to show a step function.

FICO 98 and FICO 04 only scores the first 3 inquiries.

FICO 8 only scores the first 6 inquiries.

FICO 9 only scores the first  4 inquiries.

For FICO 98 and FICO 04 the first 3 inquiries are worth at least 30 points. My first 3 inquiries on EX 98 were worth 38 points. They were scored individually. The first was worth 20 points. The second was worth 10 points, and the third was worth 8. If there were  0-1 and 2-3 step functions that would mean that only 1 inquiry was being scored by the older algorithms. If this was true, in the days of the older scoring models, the forum would have been littered with posts to the effect of "I just lost 36 point for 1 inquiry." The search function reveals that this is not the case.

[Anonymous]

Hey JLK.  Ease up.  It's not completely innacurate for me to say that, if I understood them right, a number of people who have been here a long time have conjectured that inquiries were affected by a step function.  Quite the contrary, it was fully accurate for me to say that.  There really were a number of people who have been here for a while who have made that conjecture.

A bit more relaxed, less hostile, less controntational and (slightly) more humble response on your part would have been: Hey, I know what you mean.  A number of people who have been here for a while have indeed made that conjecture.  So I don't blame you for summarizing what you had heard.  But they are without exception wrong and nobody in this forum except me has any competence to make any claims about this.  Here is why.

But what I said, couched in a great deal of humility and awareness that I might be mistaken, was pretty spot on.  There really were more than a few experienced people who thought exactly what I mentioned -- which is all I claimed (as touches the SF).

[Revelate]

---

@JLK93 wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

0-1 inquiries: No scoring penalty

2-3: Minus 5 points

4-5: Minus 5 more points

6-7: Minus 5 more points

8-10: Minus 5 more points

11-14: Minus 5 more points

15 or more: Minus 5 more points 

---

This is completely inaccurate information. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person who has ever done anything approaching a comprehensive study of inquiries. I watched my inquiries aging off over a period of a year. Each inquiry was scored individually. Multiple times I have watched inquiries go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0. I'm also the only person to do any sort of study on buffering and deduplication of credit card inquiries. I consider myself qualified to make some conclusions about the scoring of inquiries. Conjecture by "forum veterans" about a step function is not necessary.

In all my observations I have never seen any evidence of a step function. Even if it exists, to a limited extent, for certain profiles, there is no reason to tell people that it is the norm. It is certainly not.

Everyone is free to use the search function and see for themselves that there was never any testing in the past to show a step function.

FICO 98 and FICO 04 only scores the first 3 inquiries.

FICO 8 only scores the first 6 inquiries.

FICO 9 only scores the first  4 inquiries.

For FICO 98 and FICO 04 the first 3 inquiries are worth at least 30 points. My first 3 inquiries on EX 98 were worth 38 points. They were scored individually. The first was worth 20 points. The second was worth 10 points, and the third was worth 8. If there were  0-1 and 2-3 step functions that would mean that only 1 inquiry was being scored by the older algorithms. If this was true, in the days of the older scoring models, the forum would have been littered with posts to the effect of "I just lost 36 point for 1 inquiry." The search function reveals that this is not the case.

---

Meh we're throwing out my data too?

Come on dude .  Your data is interesting but it's not the only righteous source of information... Respect.  On the flipside the Lithium search function isn't worth respecting at all, I still think that patently sucks.

Also FWIW at least when I had last read that thread you had not conclusively proved binning or dedupe one way or the other, both were reasonable at that time and mea culpa if your thread has advanced that further and I missed it.  Either way, we do mandate others be treated with respect, and this blithe dismissal of everyone else, doesn't engender what we want on this forum.

[JLK93]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hey JLK.  Ease up.  It's not completely innacurate for me to say that, if I understood them right, a number of people who have been here a long time have conjectured that inquiries were affected by a step function.  Quite the contrary, it was fully accurate for me to say that.  There really were a number of people who have been here for a while who have made that conjecture.

A bit more relaxed, less hostile, less controntational and (slightly) more humble response on your part would have been: Hey, I know what you mean.  A number of people who have been here for a while have indeed made that conjecture.  So I don't blame you for summarizing what you had heard.  But they are without exception wrong and nobody in this forum except me has any competence to make any claims about this.  Here is why.

But what I said, couched in a great deal of humility and awareness that I might be mistaken, was pretty spot on.  There really were more than a few experienced people who thought exactly what I mentioned -- which is all I claimed (as touches the SF).

---

Why are you quoting false information just because there are conjectures. I have pointed out in the past that this information is incorrect. Show me historical testing that shows  any basis for your post.

[JLK93]

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@JLK93 wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

0-1 inquiries: No scoring penalty

2-3: Minus 5 points

4-5: Minus 5 more points

6-7: Minus 5 more points

8-10: Minus 5 more points

11-14: Minus 5 more points

15 or more: Minus 5 more points 

---

This is completely inaccurate information. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person who has ever done anything approaching a comprehensive study of inquiries. I watched my inquiries aging off over a period of a year. Each inquiry was scored individually. Multiple times I have watched inquiries go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0. I'm also the only person to do any sort of study on buffering and deduplication of credit card inquiries. I consider myself qualified to make some conclusions about the scoring of inquiries. Conjecture by "forum veterans" about a step function is not necessary.

In all my observations I have never seen any evidence of a step function. Even if it exists, to a limited extent, for certain profiles, there is no reason to tell people that it is the norm. It is certainly not.

Everyone is free to use the search function and see for themselves that there was never any testing in the past to show a step function.

FICO 98 and FICO 04 only scores the first 3 inquiries.

FICO 8 only scores the first 6 inquiries.

FICO 9 only scores the first  4 inquiries.

For FICO 98 and FICO 04 the first 3 inquiries are worth at least 30 points. My first 3 inquiries on EX 98 were worth 38 points. They were scored individually. The first was worth 20 points. The second was worth 10 points, and the third was worth 8. If there were  0-1 and 2-3 step functions that would mean that only 1 inquiry was being scored by the older algorithms. If this was true, in the days of the older scoring models, the forum would have been littered with posts to the effect of "I just lost 36 point for 1 inquiry." The search function reveals that this is not the case.

---

Meh we're throwing out my data too?

Come on dude .  Your data is interesting but it's not the only righteous source of information... Respect.

Also FWIW at least when I had last read that thread you had not conclusively proved binning or dedupe one way or the other, both were reasonable at that time and mea culpa if your thread has advanced that further and I missed it.

---

You have claimed multiple times  that there legions of testers that proved inquiry bins. But, you have failed to provide any links to the testing of these legions of testers. You have not even explained how there were ever legions of testers on this forum.

[JLK93]

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

Meh we're throwing out my data too? 

---

How many years have you been claiming that information from your dirty reports was gold plated?

[Revelate]

---

@JLK93 wrote:

---

@Revelate wrote:

---

@JLK93 wrote:

---

@Anonymous wrote:

0-1 inquiries: No scoring penalty

2-3: Minus 5 points

4-5: Minus 5 more points

6-7: Minus 5 more points

8-10: Minus 5 more points

11-14: Minus 5 more points

15 or more: Minus 5 more points 

---

This is completely inaccurate information. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person who has ever done anything approaching a comprehensive study of inquiries. I watched my inquiries aging off over a period of a year. Each inquiry was scored individually. Multiple times I have watched inquiries go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 0. I'm also the only person to do any sort of study on buffering and deduplication of credit card inquiries. I consider myself qualified to make some conclusions about the scoring of inquiries. Conjecture by "forum veterans" about a step function is not necessary.

In all my observations I have never seen any evidence of a step function. Even if it exists, to a limited extent, for certain profiles, there is no reason to tell people that it is the norm. It is certainly not.

Everyone is free to use the search function and see for themselves that there was never any testing in the past to show a step function.

FICO 98 and FICO 04 only scores the first 3 inquiries.

FICO 8 only scores the first 6 inquiries.

FICO 9 only scores the first  4 inquiries.

For FICO 98 and FICO 04 the first 3 inquiries are worth at least 30 points. My first 3 inquiries on EX 98 were worth 38 points. They were scored individually. The first was worth 20 points. The second was worth 10 points, and the third was worth 8. If there were  0-1 and 2-3 step functions that would mean that only 1 inquiry was being scored by the older algorithms. If this was true, in the days of the older scoring models, the forum would have been littered with posts to the effect of "I just lost 36 point for 1 inquiry." The search function reveals that this is not the case.

---

Meh we're throwing out my data too?

Come on dude .  Your data is interesting but it's not the only righteous source of information... Respect.

Also FWIW at least when I had last read that thread you had not conclusively proved binning or dedupe one way or the other, both were reasonable at that time and mea culpa if your thread has advanced that further and I missed it.

---

You have claimed multiple times  that there legions of testers that proved inquiry bins. But, you have failed to provide any links to the testing of these legions of testers. You have not even explained how there were ever legions of testers on this forum.

---

If you want to get personal about this we can, notice in that thread I backed off that statement and posted my own data.  I'm willing to admit not only that I might be wrong, but that I am wrong in some cases... that wouldn't be remiss for you as well.

If you have data which conclusively proves one way or the other, fine, post it, we'll look and agree to come to a new normal conclusion; until then you will treat others with respect as per our Terms of Service.  This combative style of posting simply does not endgender what we want, and ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated, ever.  

--Revelate, myFICO moderator