topic Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 13:16:26 GMT

The only change I can discern in my EX report from yesterday to today is one 23% revolver dropping to zero.

This caused accounts with balances to move from 13/30 to 12/30, and overall balance to move from rounded 8% to rounded 7%.

I would have predicted zero effect on my scores. But instead I got:

FICO 8 +7

FICO 2 +6

Auto 8 +9

BC 8 +7

This causes me to scratch my head, because I had a similar bounce when my overall utilization dropped from 7% to 6% a couple of weeks ago. They can't both be milestones, can they?

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 13:36:11 GMT

Nope.

That should direct your attention to other areas such as # of accounts with balances, # of accounts with ages under 3 months, 6 months and 12 months and perhaps impact of adding a charge card (improved credit mix?). Is the charge card showing on your report?

There have been some discussions that new accounts (and possibly inactive accounts) could impact score when they 1st report a new balance. If the account reports a "significant" balance score temporarily drops and then rebounds when payment is made. These observations were primarily on young, thin files.

In any event, you need to look outside the aggregate utilization box for root cause.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 18:17:40 GMT

It was mid-month, and credit summary listed same ages, so aging can be eliminated

New charge card is not reporting yet, so that can be eliminated

Can 12/30 (or 40%) cards reporting a balance be a magic number for me? Somehow, I doubt that

dropping from 13 to 12 cards reporting a balance would move my scores to that degree.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 18:31:35 GMT

Another change, one which I would have thought of as minor, is that the account which went from 23% down to 0% also reported a $1600 credit limit increase.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 04:36:21 GMT

Do you have any non-revolving accounts with balances?

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 05:56:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Do you have any non-revolving accounts with balances?

I have one "reindeer games" SSL with a tiny balance. If you take that into account it would have been 14/31 dropping to 13/31.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 16:14:22 GMT

I'm of the opinion that all accounts matter when discussing number/percentage of accounts with a balance, so the SSL I believe should be included in the numbers. Whether or not that minor difference has any impact at all on the score shift you saw, who knows.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

NRB525 — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 22:24:37 GMT

SJ you are doing your best to ignore the obvious.

It’s the individual card utilization change. That has been the driver of your last few threads on these score changes.

Sorry but you don’t have a special Aggregate Utilization threshold at 6% and 7%.

It’s individual card utilization.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:06:30 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
SJ you are doing your best to ignore the obvious.

It’s the individual card utilization change. That has been the driver of your last few threads on these score changes.

Sorry but you don’t have a special Aggregate Utilization threshold at 6% and 7%.

It’s individual card utilization.

As I have previously mentioned, I have many individual utilization movements of that size, both up and down, which have no effect at all on the scores.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 02:35:22 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
As I have previously mentioned, I have many individual utilization movements of that size, both up and down, which have no effect at all on the scores.

Previously mentioned many times, indeed. Previously ignored many times, certainly.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

NRB525 — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 05:28:04 GMT

Individual card utilization.

Ignore it all you want

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 13:41:44 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
Individual card utilization.

Ignore it all you want

I'm quite sure SJ will ignore it, the same you've ignored what he's said across 2-3 threads I believe about 5 times now? (I've actually lost count at this point)

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

NRB525 — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 17:26:52 GMT

It’s quite entertaining that you will ignore a threshold on Individual card utilization that matches known thresholds on Aggregate utilization, specifically that 9% is a very believable threshold on individual card utilization and also affects aggregate utilization...

And will find more believable a made-up threshold ( 2 in fact ) at 6% and 7% aggregate utilization, out of the blue.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:23:09 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
It’s quite entertaining that you will ignore a threshold on Individual card utilization that matches known thresholds on Aggregate utilization, specifically that 9% is a very believable threshold on individual card utilization and also affects aggregate utilization...

It wasn't ignored. Why you aren't able to recognize that after being told (say) 6 times across 2-3 threads is concerning.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

NRB525 — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 18:58:05 GMT

Repeating a falsehood six times does not make it become a truth.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 22:07:35 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
Repeating a falsehood six times does not make it become a truth.

It's your opinion that it's a falsehood. It's SJ's opinion based on his own profile research that it's not. You're basically telling him that his own profile testing results are wrong. If that's how you feel, after mentioning that 6 times it's probably not worth mentioning again, as it isn't going to be value-adding at all to what SJ is discussing at this point.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

HeavenOhio — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 14:59:52 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
Can 12/30 (or 40%) cards reporting a balance be a magic number for me? Somehow, I doubt that
dropping from 13 to 12 cards reporting a balance would move my scores to that degree.

How often do you get these scores? If you get these scores frequently and you have a Chase or Discover card available for testing, you can take advantage of the fact that they'll report whenever you call in and ask them to.

Charge something, request that the balance be reported, pay the card to zero, and request that the balance be reported again. If you can pull off the test within a relatively short time span, you might be able to avoid the many moving parts that would be going on in your profile.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:09:07 GMT

That's a good suggestion above to keep the card in question a constant. I'd say the best method would be to start with either of those cards at $0, then report the balance, then pay it off and report $0 again. This would give 3 solid scores... the before, during and after. With no other factors influencing score during this span of a few days, the before and after scores should be identical, with the during score being the data point for score change.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

SouthJamaica — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 17:34:46 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
Can 12/30 (or 40%) cards reporting a balance be a magic number for me? Somehow, I doubt that
dropping from 13 to 12 cards reporting a balance would move my scores to that degree.
How often do you get these scores? If you get these scores frequently and you have a Chase or Discover card available for testing, you can take advantage of the fact that they'll report whenever you call in and ask them to.

Charge something, request that the balance be reported, pay the card to zero, and request that the balance be reported again. If you can pull off the test within a relatively short time span, you might be able to avoid the many moving parts that would be going on in your profile.

That's the thing, I now have daily realtime access to my EX reports, as well as to 4 EX scores (FICO 2, FICO 8, FICO Bankcard 8, FICO Auto 8). So I'm getting clean readings.

Re: 8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

NRB525 — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 06:44:54 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@HeavenOhio wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
Can 12/30 (or 40%) cards reporting a balance be a magic number for me? Somehow, I doubt that
dropping from 13 to 12 cards reporting a balance would move my scores to that degree.
How often do you get these scores? If you get these scores frequently and you have a Chase or Discover card available for testing, you can take advantage of the fact that they'll report whenever you call in and ask them to.

Charge something, request that the balance be reported, pay the card to zero, and request that the balance be reported again. If you can pull off the test within a relatively short time span, you might be able to avoid the many moving parts that would be going on in your profile.
That's the thing, I now have daily realtime access to my EX reports, as well as to 4 EX scores (FICO 2, FICO 8, FICO Bankcard 8, FICO Auto 8). So I'm getting clean readings.

I agree fully with Heaven’s suggestion. The challenge is going to be fitting it in with the timing of 12 other cards reporting during the month.