I can’t argue about accuracy, but something has drastically changed for the worse. It is along this same point.
I made heavy use of my credit cards to fix up a piece of rental property damaged during the hurricane. Immediacy was necessary for sake of my renters, and caused my utilization rate to climb over 80%. Once I received my insurance money I paid off all cards at once. These were large transaction well into 4 and 5 figures. As the system noted the payoffs reported by the various CRAs, NOTHING changed in my FICO score. For example, I would receive a notice stating “Your credit card balance decreased by 100%.” That would be followed by “One of your credit cards has decreased by $5,800.”
The point is that each of these values would be between 5% - 10% of my total available credit card limits. Over a long period, I would see my utilization drop in large degrees as the various CRAs reported the change. Yet, I had virtually no change to any FICO score (Equifax increased by 9 points one time). Nothing else changed (never late, no new credit, no derog remarks, excellent credit mix, etc.
Fundamentally, the only reason my credit dropped was the utilization – I understood that; however, it should have also risen appropriately (not as much I understand) as new data is supplied. BUT the new FICO has changed nothing. The old system would see that if your utilization increased from 5% to 80% you would drop a significant amount of points (let’s say 100 points for argument sake). But when it dropped from 80% back to 5% it should increase a significant number of points (let’s say 90 points).
Also the notifications would provide a play-by-play of CRA reporting. If TU showed that you lowered your utilization by 5% it would show your TU score increased (let’s say) 17 points. The next time TU showed that you lowered it another 9% your TU score would increase another 26 points (for example). Now you see nothing, but if you occasionally see something (like I did once) the new system does NOT change your dashboard, but makes you do the mental math!
