Maybe I'm OCD about it but this irks me!

[Anonymous]

Ok, Maybe i"m OCD about this but this irks the living daylights out of me.

I recently applied for a Credit Line and got the standard "Notice to Loan applicant" letter back from the bank. It stated that my credit score from TU is 791. I know that is a very good score, but what gets me is that the major determining factors for the score are: AMOUNT OWED ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH, and PROPORTION OF BALANCES TO CREDIT LIMITS IS TOO HIGH ON BANK OR OTHER REVOLVING !

I always pay off my balances every month and rarely exceed 7% of my credit limit in any month and usually keep it in the 3% range. I am self empployed, make darned good money and have for 21 years. I own my home and business, have significant savings, and was truely expecting a score over 800.

It sounds to me like the chimpanzee processing my score at TU needed to put some comment in the determination of score dialogue box to justify the score. Of course the 866 phone number to TU on the letter is to an automated system and will not let me talk to a breathing (and sentient) person.

Any thoughts on how I can get the actual justification for the score and/or how to get the score raised to over 800? Or should I just stop compulsing on this?

BTW, I still have not heard back on the Credit Line.

[Lel]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Ok, Maybe i"m OCD about this but this irks the living daylights out of me.

I recently applied for a Credit Line and got the standard "Notice to Loan applicant" letter back from the bank. It stated that my credit score from TU is 791. I know that is a very good score, but what gets me is that the major determining factors for the score are: AMOUNT OWED ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH, and PROPORTION OF BALANCES TO CREDIT LIMITS IS TOO HIGH ON BANK OR OTHER REVOLVING !

I always pay off my balances every month and rarely exceed 7% of my credit limit in any month and usually keep it in the 3% range. I am self empployed, make darned good money and have for 21 years. I own my home and business, have significant savings, and was truely expecting a score over 800.

It sounds to me like the chimpanzee processing my score at TU needed to put some comment in the determination of score dialogue box to justify the score. Of course the 866 phone number to TU on the letter is to an automated system and will not let me talk to a breathing (and sentient) person.

Any thoughts on how I can get the actual justification for the score and/or how to get the score raised to over 800? Or should I just stop compulsing on this?

BTW, I still have not heard back on the Credit Line.

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I think you're right on with the chimp hypothesis. I've gotten the "amount owed is too high" comment on multiple occasions, and like you my utilization and total amount owed is always low.

I don't think there's any point in arguing over these statements - they are not what determine your credit score.

[Lel]

To illustrate how meaningless these statements can be, this is what I received from Experian when I applied for a HELOC:

AMOUNT OWED ON REVOLVING ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH
LENGTH OF TIME RETAIL ACCOUNTS HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED
TIME SINCE MOST RECENT BANK/NATIONAL ACCOUNT OPENING IS TOO SHORT
TOO MANY INQUIRIES LAST 12 MONTHS

Sounds bad, doesn't it? Except that my score - and yes, it is a real FICO score - was 849.

[haulingthescoreup]

MRT, do your balances due report on your statements, and then you pay them off? With almost all CC's, the statement balance is reported to the credit bureaus, so that even if you pay in full every month, this figure can be inflated. The way around it, if you want to, is to pay them off about 5 days before the statement posts. That way, a $0 balance will be reported.

This will also knock off the "too many accounts with balances" thing, which TU especially hates. Most of us do better if we let one CC post a tiny amount, although at your high score level, this might not be necessary.

IMO, it would make a lot more sense to report the balance remaining after the payment due date, but they don't. I figure that since I know about this practice, I can exploit it for my own purposes.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Ok, Maybe i"m OCD about this but this irks the living daylights out of me.

I recently applied for a Credit Line and got the standard "Notice to Loan applicant" letter back from the bank. It stated that my credit score from TU is 791. I know that is a very good score, but what gets me is that the major determining factors for the score are: AMOUNT OWED ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH, and PROPORTION OF BALANCES TO CREDIT LIMITS IS TOO HIGH ON BANK OR OTHER REVOLVING !

I always pay off my balances every month and rarely exceed 7% of my credit limit in any month and usually keep it in the 3% range. I am self empployed, make darned good money and have for 21 years. I own my home and business, have significant savings, and was truely expecting a score over 800.

It sounds to me like the chimpanzee processing my score at TU needed to put some comment in the determination of score dialogue box to justify the score. Of course the 866 phone number to TU on the letter is to an automated system and will not let me talk to a breathing (and sentient) person.

Any thoughts on how I can get the actual justification for the score and/or how to get the score raised to over 800? Or should I just stop compulsing on this?

BTW, I still have not heard back on the Credit Line.

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With a score that high you already qualify for the best rates on any plausible loan, the highest cutoffs I've heard of were 780 and for many types of loans anything above 720 gets the best terms they offer, so getting above 800 would have little practical value for you. I know exactly where you are coming from, the lowest of my three FICO scores is usually around 790 and I get the same hyperpicky reasons for not getting an even better score. The underlying issue is their system does not distinguish between "convenience users" like me and "revolvers" who carry a balance. My wife and I both make decent salaries and carry very little cash, so we run quite a few bucks through our cards and pay the balance in full at the end of the month.

In most cases the balance they report on your credit history is the balance as of the day they print your monthly statement, so if you really wanted a few more points on your FICO scores you could check your balance a week or so before the statement date, add to that amount a little more than whatever else you expect to spend on that card by statement date, and send them a payment of that total so that when statement date rolls around you'll have a small credit balance. I don't think it's worth bothering about that under normal circumstances myself, but whenever I next anticipate taking out a major loan I might do it for a couple months prior to applying just to maximize my scores.

[Anonymous]

The FICO reports list the negative factors but never tell you how many points those factors are taking away. The formula almost always has a few things it is "picking on" so to speak, but the magnitude of the loss may be very little. In your bucket it may be that you need your balances under 5% for them not to be a negative factor etc. Even so, I doubt you are losing more than a few points for that, and you are probably losing a few points for total age or average age (as almost all of us are), that right there can come to your 790 score (which is excellent). It is something that you maybe can do something about by controlling when you pay your cards off, but it really isn't worth worrying about.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The FICO reports list the negative factors but never tell you how many points those factors are taking away. The formula almost always has a few things it is "picking on" so to speak, but the magnitude of the loss may be very little. In your bucket it may be that you need your balances under 5% for them not to be a negative factor etc. Even so, I doubt you are losing more than a few points for that, and you are probably losing a few points for total age or average age (as almost all of us are), that right there can come to your 790 score (which is excellent). It is something that you maybe can do something about by controlling when you pay your cards off, but it really isn't worth worrying about.

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Only for my Experian (usually my highest at around 825) does my report from myfico say "there are no negative factors..."