@Revelate wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:Experian keeps reporting my Alliant share secured loan wrong, it seems. I took out a $500 loan, paid it down to $77, and Experian is listing as a negative score factor that "The remaining balance on your mortgage or non-mortgage installment loans is too high."
I guess I was supposed to first let it report at $500 for one cycle before paying it down. Strange that EQ and TU both get it right, that it's a $500 loan with a 15.4% balance, but EX can't get it right.
Curses. My AAoA is too weak for me to pay off the loan and try again, so I guess I'm stuck with a bad Experian score for a couple of years now.
Last time you reported that Experian was listing your $500 loan as a $100 loan. Thus, the $77 balance would compute as 77%. The other 2 CRAs gave you full points for the loan and did not show a reason statement regarding high loan balance (those loans compute to 15.4% balance)
Did this happen to you again?
Note 1: Based on the above (for EQ & TU) it sure looks like under 20% is sufficient..
Note 2: If you are keeping the loan, consider stepping down the balance from $77 to $38 (under 40%) then $28 (under 30%) and then $18 (under 20%). Stop once the reason code/statement goes away and then string out the loan. [wait until you get those Fico 9 scores end of March to see what is listed for EX]
Note 3: At 40% remaining balance and above on mortgage I get the high balance to loan reason when/if my Fico 4 score drops below 800. So, it looks like somewhere between 20% and 40% remaining can trigger the reason code.
Did you mean FICO 8 / 98? There was no installment utilization found in FICO 04 from all of my testing, seemed like FICO skipped that altogether. Didn't move throughout all my history including the mortgage landing at 100%
Revelate, my mistake -
it was EQ Fico bankcard score 5 and it reads: The balance on your non mortgage credit accounts are too high. Must be referring to my AMEX. It also lists: You have not established a long installment credit history. [ not sure what's up with that. I am 10 years into a 15 year mortgage. I also had a prior 15 year mortgage but that dropped off my report last year]
FWIW - Pasted below is what happened to mortgage when I went from 3 of 6 cards reporting to 6 of 6. AG UT% under 4%. However, AMEX charge reported 50% of HB, it's a NPSL card. I particularly am confounded by the TU reason statement regarding a short credit history. I would think 31 years is sufficient.
@Anonymous with balances: 6 of 6 with 50% AMEX, revolving AG UT @ 3%
@Anonymous with balances 3 of 6 AMEX charge not reporting, revolving AG UT @ 2%
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:Experian keeps reporting my Alliant share secured loan wrong, it seems. I took out a $500 loan, paid it down to $77, and Experian is listing as a negative score factor that "The remaining balance on your mortgage or non-mortgage installment loans is too high."
I guess I was supposed to first let it report at $500 for one cycle before paying it down. Strange that EQ and TU both get it right, that it's a $500 loan with a 15.4% balance, but EX can't get it right.
Curses. My AAoA is too weak for me to pay off the loan and try again, so I guess I'm stuck with a bad Experian score for a couple of years now.
Last time you reported that Experian was listing your $500 loan as a $100 loan. Thus, the $77 balance would compute as 77%. The other 2 CRAs gave you full points for the loan and did not show a reason statement regarding high loan balance (those loans compute to 15.4% balance)
Did this happen to you again?
Note 1: Based on the above (for EQ & TU) it sure looks like under 20% is sufficient..
Note 2: If you are keeping the loan, consider stepping down the balance from $77 to $38 (under 40%) then $28 (under 30%) and then $18 (under 20%). Stop once the reason code/statement goes away and then string out the loan. [wait until you get those Fico 9 scores end of March to see what is listed for EX]
Note 3: At 40% remaining balance and above on mortgage I get the high balance to loan reason when/if my Fico 4 score drops below 800. So, it looks like somewhere between 20% and 40% remaining can trigger the reason code.
Did you mean FICO 8 / 98? There was no installment utilization found in FICO 04 from all of my testing, seemed like FICO skipped that altogether. Didn't move throughout all my history including the mortgage landing at 100%
Revelate, my mistake -
it was EQ Fico bankcard score 5 and it reads: The balance on your non mortgage credit accounts are too high. Must be referring to my AMEX. It also lists: You have not established a long installment credit history. [ not sure what's up with that. I am 10 years into a 15 year mortgage. I also had a prior 15 year mortgage but that dropped off my report last year]
FWIW - Pasted below is what happened to mortgage when I went from 3 of 6 cards reporting to 6 of 6. AG UT% under 4%. However, AMEX charge reported 50% of HB, it's a NPSL card. I particularly am confounded by the TU reason statement regarding a short credit history. I would think 31 years is sufficient.
@Anonymous with balances: 6 of 6 with 50% AMEX, revolving AG UT @ 3
@Anonymous with balances 3 of 6 AMEX charge not reporting, revolving AG UT @ 2%
Hah no worries bud! TU Bankcard 04 was seriously screwy for me when I was micromanging my scores during the mortgage process, so I'm not surprised there was some wonkiness with EQ Beacon 5 Bankcard too... I'd actually be surprised if there weren't but I do appreciate the further insight even if I don't put much stock in any bankcard score short of FICO 8 in terms of expecting a lender to ever use it for a decision.
TBH I take your reason codes with a huge grain of salt since FICO struggles to find anything wrong with your reports 
. By definition every one of your problems is strictly minor, unlike mine where I get oddities like "recently seeking credit" as #2 on my report when there's TONS of things wrong with it still. Admittedly the inquiry was like a day old at that point, but still, only my tax lien rated higher? Strange.
@jamie123 wrote:
@JBjunior wrote:Thanks, I think I will pay it down earlier, from reading through it still reports the total amount regardless. So do i only have to deposit exactly $500 for the loan or is there a reason to put in more?
For anyone that would like to give an educated guess, would the hit on the AAofA, currently at around 6 years, be outweighed by the addition of this installment loan?
You really need to deposit a bit more to make sure you have the loan interest taken care of. I think the total loan interest on a 4 year loan is something like $27. Not per year, but total. I always recommend that people deposit $550 so when the loan is paid off and closed you will have about $23 in the account.
I let mine ride at average payoffs from October 2014 (Alaska FCU) until 16 months paid to 44 dollars. Fico 8 TU went from 751 to 800, even with slightly under 30% util on one card (3% util overall). 
@SouthJamaica wrote:It just occurred to me that these "reindeer game" share secured loans are being factored into my "average age of accounts".
Holy cow I better stop playing.
Do not keep doing new ones, one is enough. Let the dang thing age. I did not pay down until 16 months, then bam, 750 to 800 scores with AAoA under two year (EQ is over two years) think ex does not like me.
@Imperfectfuture wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:It just occurred to me that these "reindeer game" share secured loans are being factored into my "average age of accounts".
Holy cow I better stop playing.
Do not keep doing new ones, one is enough. Let the dang thing age. I did not pay down until 16 months, then bam, 750 to 800 scores with AAoA under two year (EQ is over two years) think ex does not like me.
I agree. One open installment loan will do the job. I don't recall ever seeing any evidence in these threads that a second loan adds any more points.
@Imperfectfuture wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:It just occurred to me that these "reindeer game" share secured loans are being factored into my "average age of accounts".
Holy cow I better stop playing.
Do not keep doing new ones, one is enough. Let the dang thing age. I did not pay down until 16 months, then bam, 750 to 800 scores with AAoA under two year (EQ is over two years) think ex does not like me.
Huh, interesting datapoint my friend!
That's a much bigger swing than what I got on my dirty file, and suggests I may not break call it 770 when I get clean in 2 years on EQ/EX with my installment utilization hammered still by my mortgage even with an AAOA of 4 years at that point.
Anyway SJ: the reindeer games only hurt in the short term, building a thicker file will be a buffer to future applications and since likely none of us are going to have our credit reports utterly idle over a 10 year span, it's not terrible issue to have.
I likewise don't think more than one is really necessary, did make a small difference under credit mix at least on FICO 04 but installment utilization is a way bigger deal than credit mix assuming you have the basic 3 revolving + 1 installment most people recommend as a starting point or better.
@Revelate wrote:
@Imperfectfuture wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:It just occurred to me that these "reindeer game" share secured loans are being factored into my "average age of accounts".
Holy cow I better stop playing.
Do not keep doing new ones, one is enough. Let the dang thing age. I did not pay down until 16 months, then bam, 750 to 800 scores with AAoA under two year (EQ is over two years) think ex does not like me.
Huh, interesting datapoint my friend!
That's a much bigger swing than what I got on my dirty file, and suggests I may not break call it 770 when I get clean in 2 years on EQ/EX with my installment utilization hammered still by my mortgage even with an AAOA of 4 years at that point.
Anyway SJ: the reindeer games only hurt in the short term, building a thicker file will be a buffer to future applications and since likely none of us are going to have our credit reports utterly idle over a 10 year span, it's not terrible issue to have.
I likewise don't think more than one is really necessary, did make a small difference under credit mix at least on FICO 04 but installment utilization is a way bigger deal than credit mix assuming you have the basic 3 revolving + 1 installment most people recommend as a starting point or better.
I only closed down the first two because I didn't understand how the reindeer game actually works.
Now that I get it, this baby will stay open for 47 months, which will bring my monthly payment down to around 95 cents
@mbla wrote:Alliant added a $0.10 insurance charge to my Shared Secure Loan. This caused the remaining balance on a $1200 loan to be reported as $120 (10%). The reporting balance was $119 (<10%). This change had a major impact on my FICO8 scores:
Stats: Clean Files, AAoA 4.1 years, Oldest Account: 12 years
EX FICO8 from 811 to 779
EQ FICO8 from 817 to 781
TU FICO8 from 825 to 788
I made a $3 loan payment bring the balance down to $117 and sent a secure message to Alliant asking them to do a mid-cycle reporting to all three CRAs (no response yet). Even if the won't do the midcycle reporting the scores should return to previous levels next month!
Whoa, do let us know if that does happen next month, that's about as conclusive a datapoint as I think we're going to get! Did you mean interest charge though?
Thank you!