New accounts

[EaglesFan2006]

How long does it take inquiries and new accounts to appear on your credit report.  Is it something that will affect your score immediately?

[haulingthescoreup]

Inqs show up immediately, posting realtime. I was once on hold with BofA, trying to apply, and the inq was on my EX report at the end of the phone call.

New accounts often don't show up until the first statement is generated, although this isn't always so. The same BofA account showed up on my reports maybe five days after I was approved.

[vanillabean]

This is right up my alley. I'm interested in applying for a new card, but my recent Discover card is about to be listed on the credit reports for the first time. I want to be keep the two separate from each other, so I can see the score fluctuations for each of them.

Yes, EX is fast. Discover was on the EX credit report this morning within 12 hours of Discover reporting last night. But I need to make sure about EQ and TU, and they take longer. Which is also why I didn't risk the inquiry before Discover reported.

Discover by the way has been kind of odd during the initial phase. Weeks went by after the first statement, and it hadn't reported. So I talked to a supervisor at the customer service yesterday, who couldn't explain it, but issued a manual push to take place in the evening. She additionally clarified that they used to report on the Friday after the statement, but now it's their common practice to do it the day after.

She also had a hard time explaining why all that happened on the evening of DW's first statement date was to push the date down another month. We reached somewhat of a consensus in that it was because DW didn't start using her card quite as quickly as I did. In retrospect, I suspect the lack of expected statement was because her first charge was within the same calendar month as the statement date, whereas it was different months in my case.

But good to know for sure from EX that Discover reports the credit limit. But because it does, I'm suddenly having two cards reporting a balance for util. I have now zeroed the other, it's an Amex which takes a month to report, so that not optimal. The Amex customer service people say it'll report by the end of the calendar month when the balance is zero, so that works great, although I'm not convinced yet it works that way.

[RobertEG]

Trying to isolate the effect of only one new inquiry on your score will be very difficult, for many reasons.

Discover may have totally different reporting dates to each CRA for the entry of the inq that led to that new account.  The inqs could have been reported a month before the new account posted.  Those dont usually occur at the same time. The OC may not report to all the CRAs on the same date, and each CRA will have its own in-house processing time.

The same with the posting of the new Discover card itself, which, when posted, will also have multiple impacts in both AAoA and % util.

Even a few days delay makes it impossible to isolate one action, such a new inq, from its afftects on all categories of your score.  Your other accounts willl have aged, their prior derogs, if any, have also aged, and your % util of existing credit will usually fluctuate.

With all of the factors at play in various reporting times and scoring categories, tyring to keep everything static in order to evaluate the impact of a very insignificant item such as one transient, new inquiry, that drops anyway after one year, does not seem, at least in my opinion, to worth the mental gymnastics. 

Reverse enginnering of the impact of one isolated item within your credit scoring is not easy.

[vanillabean]

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@RobertEG wrote:

The same with the posting of the new Discover card itself, which, when posted, will also have multiple impacts in both AAoA and % util.

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That is regrettably correct. I'll have to make some qualified guesses to separate those impacts.

I just realized that Discover reported an unexpected dollar amount when they pushed it through manually. They didn't simply report the amount from the first statement; instead they added the total so far of the second billing cycle on top of it, in short my total outstanding balance. Ironic that tonight the automated payment took care of the first statement's monthly balance.

Discover's DirectPay by the way kicks in ten days prior to the following billing cycle's statement date. Nothing really wrong about that though, because if you pay manually, it's five days later, so the 25 day grace period is intact. But you have to be on top of it. I can't recall anyone in the forums though mentioning those various twists and turns that I have outlined in this thread.

[EaglesFan2006]

This might be a tough question, but how long does the impact of an inquiry or new acct last.  I'm not planning on getting new credit for a while aftert this, so will several months of good payments make up for the hit of a new account?

[haulingthescoreup]

Inquiries display on your full reports for two years, but they only affect scoring for one year, and it's usually only a few points.

I think the new credit ding is for 6 months, although it might be 12 months.

If you have high scores, these might still display as negative factors, but they probably don't have much impact, unless they're listed first.

[vanillabean]

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@EaglesFan2006 wrote:

This might be a tough question, but how long does the impact of an inquiry or new acct last.  I'm not planning on getting new credit for a while aftert this, so will several months of good payments make up for the hit of a new account?

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Such an offset may carry little weight for some lenders. A credit card company like Discover has a conservative reputation and is known to look at inquiries as an independent factor; they may decline your card application due to a high number of inquiries regardless of a perfect payment track record or a score past 760. The good thing is, as noted elsewhere,  that the impact of inquiries diminishes over time and is usually gone after a year.

While good payments are central in the minds of many people, credit reports do not focus on them directly, not until payments are late anyway, and that's important; 35% of what makes up your score is payment history (on time, not how much), and 30% is debt. Reports and scores focus on reported monthly balances in part of reported credit limits; the lower, the better (except when the total of monthly balances is $0, which may indicate you're not using  credit and as such not responsibly).

You brought up the distinction between an inquiry and the hit of a new account (let's define the latter as when the new card is posted on your credit reports, so excluding the inquiry). When I recently got a hard inquiry from applying for a Discover card, my TU was dinged 0 points. DW's EQ decreased her score 7 points for applying. (She used the online form, while I called them, which likely accounts for Discover checking different agencies.)

As for the hit of a new account being posted on your credit reports, I hope to be able to tell you that this weekend (I suspect it'll be fairly neutral). Because on Monday will be one year ago exactly that I applied for another card, and you generally get a score increase for that alone, given the card is in good standing.

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

Trying to isolate the effect of only one new inquiry on your score will be very difficult, for many reasons.

Discover may have totally different reporting dates to each CRA for the entry of the inq that led to that new account.  The inqs could have been reported a month before the new account posted.  Those dont usually occur at the same time. The OC may not report to all the CRAs on the same date, and each CRA will have its own in-house processing time.

The same with the posting of the new Discover card itself, which, when posted, will also have multiple impacts in both AAoA and % util.

Even a few days delay makes it impossible to isolate one action, such a new inq, from its afftects on all categories of your score.  Your other accounts willl have aged, their prior derogs, if any, have also aged, and your % util of existing credit will usually fluctuate.

With all of the factors at play in various reporting times and scoring categories, tyring to keep everything static in order to evaluate the impact of a very insignificant item such as one transient, new inquiry, that drops anyway after one year, does not seem, at least in my opinion, to worth the mental gymnastics. 

Reverse enginnering of the impact of one isolated item within your credit scoring is not easy.

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INQs post to your CR immediately.

As such, it should be relatively easy and accurate to isolate the effect of one INQ, though it is costly.  Pull your FICOs, apply for your target credit product, then pull your FICOs again.  Hopefully you got what you applied for otherwise you are out an INQ and $30.