Is It True That Too Many Store Credit Cards Lower Credit Scores?

[Anonymous]

I've heard that having too many store credit cards vs bank credit cards on one's credit profile will lower credit score. I have 6 bank credit cards and 3 store credit cards (J. Crew, Banana Republic, and Amazon [Synchrony])

[RonM21]

No. The Fico scoring looks at them all the same, measuring utilization vs limits given. Your scoring will react the same either way.

[Anonymous]

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@RM21 wrote:
No. The Fico scoring looks at them all the same, measuring utilization vs limits given. Your scoring will react the same either way.

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Youtube, "7 Secrets of a Perfect 850 Credit Score!" which Dave Sullivan has to say*, ""The other thing that I've seen on credit scores that weren't quite perfect. They had a few store type credit cards that FICO does not give you as many points for those and one of the factors that this 830 credit score, one of the reasons why that wasn't perfect is because they had a few store credit cards that listed that reason out right in the reason code area as, "too many store credit cards," as the reason why they were not perfect."

*Starts at 1:55

[Anonymous]

He also says you need to have at least one 30+ year old bank card to get a perfect score, so his credibility is in question right off the bat.  Also, how many is too many?  One?  Ten? 

[Revelate]

There were negative reason codes for Retail Cards in FICO NextGen, but so were a lot of other things which seemingly got yanked out on FICO 04 and later.

I don't think there's such a thing currently, I wouldn't worry about it regardless personally if the store card makes sense to have.

[iv]

On Lexis/Nexis insurance scores? Yes.

Current FICO models? No.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

He also says you need to have at least one 30+ year old bank card to get a perfect score, so his credibility is in question right off the bat.  Also, how many is too many?  One?  Ten? 

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Yeah that's definitely not the case. My father has 850s across the board and his oldest card still reporting is only 9 years old. He's got a thick, aged perfect file (so jealous!) and even the inquiry he took recently didn't even ding him a point. 

[Anonymous]

The question is whether or not anyone possesses an 850 credit score with store cards as part of their profile.  If they do, then it shows that store cards vs non-store is really a meaningless topic.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Many posters with 850s have store cards. Not sure of any 850s with only store cards.

The credit world is bigger than Fico.

As IV mentioned above, store cards will negatively impact LexisNexis credit based insurance scores (CBIS). A large majority of insurance companies use CBIS as a component in setting premiums and a most of those agencies use scores from LexisNexis.