This sounds about right. I had a mortgage for two years and it appeared not to affect my FICOs at all but it was likely because I also had some old CAs and a paid tax lien. When I paid off the mortgage my FICO didn't change. However, I was declined on two preapproved offers during the time I had the mortgage. The primary reason was too much debt even though my revolving util was only about 1%. It appeared they were factoring in the balance on a relatively new mortgage even if FICO doesn't. These days that would make sense.
As for FICO jumps, my EQ FICO went from 707 to 780 when the lien, my only remaining 5.5 y/o baddie, was removed. Since the mortgage shows as PIF I've apped for two lines and instantly approved.
@Anonymous wrote:Wow! A single lien costs you 73 points?
A lesson we learn as often as we wish:
The tax collector is the creditor of last resort -- they still have that scorched earth policy.
Yep, liens are FICO killers and the more modern FICO from EQ counts them more than the older TU score. TU98 only lost about 50 points instead of EQ's 73.
That was the only negative on my CR but I only had 3 open revolving lines and 2 older closed ones. The open ones were just over 2 years old. I had Util down to about 1%.
What's interesting is that VantageScore (a real score if infrequently used by lenders) didn't ding me at all for the lien. Neither did ScorePlus or some of the other generic FAKOs. They all called my credit "excellent" when it wasn't. It's possible some of these distinguish between paid liens and unpaid ones and ignore older paid ones. I only know FICO doesn't.The one exception was Citi's Identity Monitor which dinged me roughly the same amount as EQ's FICO.
I was shooting to experiment and get the lien removed before the old CAs dropped off and vice versa on different CRAs. I wanted to see how FICO treated CAs v PRs. However, all the CAs dropped off within about a month of each other and sooner than expected so I didn't get a chance.
As for the IRS, I found them easy to work with and they pretty much follow what they outline on their website.
Here's my definition of FICOs and FAKOs and others that are neither:
FICOs: A risk score developed by Fair Isaac.
FAKOs: "Scores" that are developed to sell only to consumers. These require no validation for either efficacy or equity (not use prohibited attributes, aka age or proxies of them). Most of them have quite a variance with respect to actual FICO scores. For instance a ScorePlus (Experian FAKO) had my credit at better than 98% of the population while my actual EQ FICO was at about 45%. But then Experian does say in the fine prinnt that their ScorePlus "scores" are not used by ANY lender.
Now while FICOs are currently the gold standard of "risk scores" they don't include information that refines these estimates . Most larger banks use acquisition scores to accept or decline new credit customers. These scores can consider things FICO doesn't like employment and home pricing trends as well as income, length of job history, and other factors which enhance both the FICO risk metric as well as whether the new customer would be expected to be net profitable.
Other Scores that are neither FICOs or FAKOs:
Any other score, developed for use by lenders. These aren't FAKOs because, unlike Experian's ScorePlus, they do not imply they are FICOs nor have ranges that are designed to confuse them with FICO scores. Vantage Score is one such score that is not a FAKO nor a FICO. However it is much less frequently used than FICO scores. Vantage scores are gaining some degree of acceptance in rating various banking portfolios by commercial raters such as S&P.
IRS:
Like the courts, the IRS does not send judgements or liens to Experian or other CRAs. The CRAs hire third parties to scan the public records for tax liens, BKs, and judgements.
The IRS slapped a lien on me but it was my own damned fault. I then went to their web site and reviewed all their compliance regs, followed them, filed my very late tax return (I had actually overpaid taxes) and got a refund. My only other dealing with them was an audit due to a taxable biz distribution to a group of people without a 1099. I had declared it properly and paid taxes so the audit was short and simple and resulted in a "no change." So, yeah, the IRS is powerful. More powerful than the largest banks. But I found them pretty straightforward. YMMV.