topic Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 01:59:08 GMT

I pulled my FICO scores on Jan 1 using CCT, at the time they were:

EQ: 764

TU: 770

EX: 760

AAoA was 1.4 years, 1% util ($262/$5000 on one card), and the SSL had not yet been reported.

Fast forward to today (Jan 10), the Alliant SSL (paid down to $42/$500) has shown up on EQ and TU, and my scores dropped :

EQ: 742

TU: 760

EX: 760 (SSL not reported yet)

AAoA is still 1.2 years, but to be fair I'm now at $1039/$5000 on one card, so individual util jumped from 5.2% to 21%. Although this shouldn't matter as it hasn't been reported yet.

What's even more interesting are the reason codes given for EQ and TU.

Under positive factors, TU lists "Substantial installment loan repayment" while this is notably absent from EQ. And instead, EQ now has an additional negative factor for "seeking credit", which was not present on the Jan 1 report. Additionally, the positive factor of "few accounts with balances" has now disappeared from both EQ and TU.

I'm starting to think I might be getting dinged for "too many new accounts" even though it's not listed as a factor, because I can't for the life of me figure out why my EQ08 tanked by 22 points and my TU08 also dropped 10 points with an installment loan reporting. It's not like I crossed some AAoA threshold either since it only dropped from 16 months to 14 months.

My only logical explanation at this point is I've been rebucketed and unfortunately landed in a bucket where my AAoA and AoYA is really hurting me.

Either way, thought I'd share to get some feedback and stimulate some discussion.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 02:08:06 GMT

On the SSL that has recently reported, what is the reported balance and the original amount of the loan?

And can you confirm for the people on the thread that you have no other open installment accounts? (Loans, auto leases, etc.) Also of interest is whether you had any closed installment accounts.

Can you check through all of your CC balances as they appear on both reports? (Jan 1 and 10) You mention a change in one credit card but then mention it hasn't changed on the report.

What tool did you use to get your scores today? Was it another CCT pull, complete with a fresh updated credit report? You may want to use one or two other tools to check your reports, just to be on the safe side, e.g. Karma.

Curious to hear more.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 02:14:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
On the SSL that has recently reported, what is the reported balance and the original amount of the loan?

High limit (loan amount) = $500
Reported balance = $42

And can you confirm for the people on the thread that you have no other open installment accounts? (Loans, auto leases, etc.) Also of interest is whether you had any closed installment accounts.

The Alliant SSL is my first and only installment account of any kind

Can you check through all of your CC balances as they appear on both reports? (Jan 1 and 10) You mention a change in one credit card but then mention it hasn't changed on the report.

Both reports still show a balance of $262 on my Barclays Uber. I only mentioned the change in util in case it factors in somehow.

What tool did you use to get your scores today? Was it another CCT pull, complete with a fresh updated credit report? You may want to use one or two other tools to check your reports, just to be on the safe side, e.g. Karma.

Yes it was another CCT pull I managed to squeeze in at the very end of my trial membership. Can't check CK until Friday, but Chase Credit Journey and Transunion True ID all have matching reports.

Curious to hear more.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 05:03:10 GMT

Before the SSL, what is (was) the age of your youngest account? If it was > 1 year and just dropped to 0 months, that could impact your score adversely.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 05:26:38 GMT

Youngest account was 1 month (or is it 2 months going by how CRAs calculate age?). Actually make that 3 accounts since I opened 3 new revolvers in November. Should this even matter though? Don't remember seeing anyone complain in the mega thread their score went down, usually it's a boost of 20-30 points, but mine went the other way.

What I don't understand is why the ding to my EQ score is so much greater than my TU score. I mean yes I have 3 inq on EQ vs only 1 on TU, but before the SSL there was only a 6 point spread. Everything seem to point towards me being rebucketed with EQ at least. There's just no other logical explanation. (unless installment accounts also count towards AZEO) Now I can't wait to find out how much of a ding EX will doll out ugh.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 06:10:16 GMT

It's just such a bizarre result that no one else has ever described -- so strange that I would continue to look for something else that could have caused it (a late payment, etc.).

There are two clear ways that your score should have been helped:

(1) Sharply improved Credit Mix (going from no installment accounts of any kind, closed or open)

(2) Sharply improved Installment Utilization (no open loans --> an IU of 8.9%).

The Age of Youngest was not substantially affected (3 months to 0) the AAoA should not have resulted in a score change (1.4 years to 1.2), and there was no hard inquiry.

Do you have the negative reason codes on both Jan 1 and 10, for the two CRAs that dropped? (That's a total of four sets of reason codes.

How many total accounts did you have, closed and open each, for both Jan 1 and 10, focusing on the two CRAs that dropped? What was your Age of Oldest Account for those two CRAs?

Age of Oldest, Age of Youngest, and Total Number of Accounts are supposed to be the three factors that FICO 8 uses to determine scorecard assignment. I am trying to get a handle on what could have happened there too.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 06:25:55 GMT

Trust me I'm scratching my head just as much. It's so phenomenally bizarre that I truly don't have the faintest clue as to what could have possibly happened apart from saying I got rebucketed. Someone get T_Thumb in here pronto!

Instead of typing out a wall of text I'm just gonna show you the following 4 screenshots that should provide all the needed info:

Jan 1

Jan 10

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Revelate — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 10:07:32 GMT

The positive factors ignore. Seriously, they have no bearing on your score at all and aren't generated from the algorithm... they're just someone's interpretation of your score. That is true of the green factors in myFICO's interface too.

Your throw away comment might've been spot on: if you have an additional "Seeking Credit" reason code you may have shifted to a different scorecard, maybe. Was this your first installment loan of any type open or closed and how many total tradelines?

Something is a bit weird anyway. That said 760 is in line with what I'd expect after a year of history basically. CCT doesn't give you more reason codes than that? Awkward.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 18:41:53 GMT

Yeah this is the first installment loan of any kind ever on my report, and 5 tradelines in total including the SSL.

If I did indeed shift to a new scorecard, I'm probably being lumped together with people who have very thick files and a very established history. So having an AAoA of just 1 year along with a bunch of new tradelines certainly is going to get penalized very heavily.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:39:27 GMT

@arkane wrote:
Youngest account was 1 month (or is it 2 months going by how CRAs calculate age?). Actually make that 3 accounts since I opened 3 new revolvers in November. Should this even matter though? Don't remember seeing anyone complain in the mega thread their score went down, usually it's a boost of 20-30 points, but mine went the other way.

What I don't understand is why the ding to my EQ score is so much greater than my TU score. I mean yes I have 3 inq on EQ vs only 1 on TU, but before the SSL there was only a 6 point spread. Everything seem to point towards me being rebucketed with EQ at least. There's just no other logical explanation. (unless installment accounts also count towards AZEO) Now I can't wait to find out how much of a ding EX will doll out ugh.

It appears you have opened 4 new accounts recently. The impact of new accounts may not be realized until after the account shows its reported use. It's likely your score is being hurt by the following:

1) Too many accounts recently opened. The SSL + a newly used revolver could have put you over a point deduct threshold.

2) Time since most recent account opening is too short. [this impacts some profiles - young/clean - much more than others]

3) Too many inquiries in the last 12 months/Date of last inquiry too recent

Based on your scorecard/ profile the above are temporarily keeping you from your hoped for boost in score - IMO. I think your score may increase 30 to 40 points in the next 90 days as risk of infant account mortality decreases. Let things stabilize.

Note: Inquiries is not a scorecard assignment criteria but QTY in the last 12 months is a scoring factor.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 01:20:14 GMT

What I think everybody would tell you is that the benefit of the SS loan will happen -- whether your problem is due to scorecard reassignment or due to the issues TT mentions. If scorecard, as time goes on you will have a leg up on many of the other people in your scorecard, since many will not have an installment util of 1-9%. If the problems are as TT suggests, you will see a benefit once you create a history of account use with longer total age and no more recent accounts or inquiries.

Regardless it's been helpful to see your case. It is very unusual. I am pretty sure we have not seen a single case like it among the hundreds of people (some of them with new profiles) who described their experience on the SSL guidance thread. Pretty much everybody else got a 25-35 point boost.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 08:12:54 GMT

It's been an eye-opening experience for sure (and not a good one). I'll keep a tab on things with CCT over the next few months and see if the needle moves in the right direction. Normally I wouldn't really care since I'll be gardening for a while anyway but I really want that CLI on my Discover and my scores just getting thrashed.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 09:43:57 GMT

This just keeps getting more and more interesting. So I pulled my EX08 from Discover Scorecard, and it stayed at 760 for a change of exactly 0.

So to sum up, with the opening of the Alliant SSL:

EQ: -22 points

TU: -10 points

EX: no change

Very interesting stuff. Seems like I got heavily penalized on EQ for too many new accounts (with one of the reason codes being "seeking credit"), possibly in relation to it being hit with 3 INQs (one was from Comcast though so not credit related).

Slight penalty on TU possibly due to too many new accounts, but not as bad as EQ. And no penalty at all on EX (but no gain either), probably the boost in credit mix exactly cancels out the penalty for too many new accounts.

Fascinating how each bureau weighs the different factors, although it's possible I'm on different scorecards for each...

Will pull CCT again in a month (and hopefully each month after that for the next 6 months) and keep track of where the scores stand.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

BurgeoningHope — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 21:14:57 GMT

Keeping an eye on this - my SSL opened right before they discontinued the product, and has yet to report, let alone report at a low balance. I have only 1 inquiry but a number of new accounts, so I don't know that I have earned a further ding that way. But my AAoA is low (well under a year). Happily, I am not seeking credit for real for at least the next several months, by which time hopefully any demerits iron themselves out.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 21:17:08 GMT

Alliant only nixed it about 3 weeks ago right? Based on that period of time I wouldn't sweat that it hasn't yet shown up on your reports.

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 22:14:34 GMT

@BurgeoningHope wrote:
Keeping an eye on this - my SSL opened right before they discontinued the product, and has yet to report, let alone report at a low balance. I have only 1 inquiry but a number of new accounts, so I don't know that I have earned a further ding that way. But my AAoA is low (well under a year). Happily, I am not seeking credit for real for at least the next several months, by which time hopefully any demerits iron themselves out.

If yours opended before Dec 31st (and sounds like it did), then it should have reported on the 31st. I'd say just give it some time, mine reported on the 31st but didn't show up until the 10th (EQ, TU) and the 13th (EX).

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Bees18 — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 21:47:48 GMT

@arkane

Did your score rebound from this and if so how long did it take?

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

arkane — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 22:06:38 GMT

Yes, only took 3 months.

EQ: 742 --> 755

TU: 760 --> 770

EX: 760 --> 772

Scores in sig are at 6 months and without AZEO. With AZEO TU is a whooping 1 point higher lol

Re: Alliant SSL caused FICO score DROP

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 00:24:21 GMT

@Bees18 wrote:
@arkane

Did your score rebound from this and if so how long did it take?

Hi Bees. As another commenter explained in your other thread, the explanation in your case is likely that at least one of your scores is a Vantage. Take that person's advice and grab your true FICO 8 scores via the $1 CCT trial.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Opened-SSL-dropped-score-45-pts/m-p/5288434#M263025