topic Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

EX FICO 2: Not Using Revolving Credit

Revelate — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 18:31:18 GMT

So this is strange; I know @SouthJamaica reported something similar on EX FICO 2 and now I'm beginning to wonder if something is wrong.

This explicitly is a reason code for me on EX FICO 2: Not Using Revolving Credit

This is a well characterized reason code, namely all revolvers at $0 (HELOC's not included on some models) and you take a ding. Easy peasey fix, no big deal. That said, I'm a little confused now on their monitoring solution, and a little skeptical.

At first I thought my CSR at a 43500 limit was simply being excluded (35k being a well pontificated line) and so the $875 balance on it was ignored: no problem, just let something else report.

And the other day DCU reported $28/500, this is a secured credit card that I've had for years and never found any weirdness with it on prior utilization testing done a few years back, but I still have that reason code. Shows up under EX FICO 2 Bankcard as well.

Will have my CFU which the original payoff of which I thought was what triggered this reason code report in another week, so we'll see if it recovers but now I'm wondering if there's just something wrong. Thoughts?

Modified title

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 23:23:56 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
So this is strange; I know @SouthJamaica reported something similar on EX FICO 2 and now I'm beginning to wonder if something is wrong.

This explicitly is a reason code for me on EX FICO 2: Not Using Revolving Credit

This is a well characterized reason code, namely all revolvers at $0 (HELOC's not included on some models) and you take a ding. Easy peasey fix, no big deal. That said, I'm a little confused now on their monitoring solution, and a little skeptical.

At first I thought my CSR at a 43500 limit was simply being excluded (35k being a well pontificated line) and so the $875 balance on it was ignored: no problem, just let something else report.

And the other day DCU reported $28/500, this is a secured credit card that I've had for years and never found any weirdness with it on prior utilization testing done a few years back, but I still have that reason code. Shows up under EX FICO 2 Bankcard as well.

Will have my CFU which the original payoff of which I thought was what triggered this reason code report in another week, so we'll see if it recovers but now I'm wondering if there's just something wrong. Thoughts?

Perhaps you're thinking of my post "Fun with negative reason codes" where I observed that dropping a couple of accounts to zero and reducing my utilization a couple of percentage points caused me to go from "high credit usage" to "not using revolving credit" in FICO 2.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 18:46:36 GMT

Yeah specifically where you had Not Using Revolving Credit (Experian reason code from their interface) with a bunch of accounts reporting.

I have a further datapoint on this as my score recovered, now I'm wondering if there's more going on rather than being a CMS issue... and the resultant score shift sure looks like an all zeros magnitude change at least.

3/10: EX FICO 2 - 765

CSR: 875/43500
DCU: 28/500
Amex Zync $10

Short Account History (AAOA)
Accounts with Balances
Not Using Revolving Credit
Seeking Credit (inquiries)

3/11: EX FICO 2 - 776 +11 points

CSR: 875/43500
DCU: 28/500
Amex Zync $10
CFU: 1685/25000

Short Account History (AAOA)
Accounts with Balances
Seeking Credit (inquiries)
Many New Accounts (AOYA of some flavor)

It appears as though either there's something weird with my file and at least what I read of yours too SJ, where some accounts may not be counted for revolving utilization that we would normally expect to be counted under EX FICO 2... and since this is a mortgage score, it matters. Also I know my HELOC doesn't appear to count too, this looks potentially narrow.

None of these (other than the Amex and the HELOC) are an issue on FICO 8, it's stayed at 827 this entire time.

I don't want to do much with testing this now because I'm less than 2 months out from ticking over 5 years AAOA so need to stabilize balances but I'd be interested to see your listing of accounts when you had your experience with it SJ and others and see if there's any sort of similarity.

Something be unexpectedly strange though.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 21:34:29 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Yeah specifically where you had Not Using Revolving Credit (Experian reason code from their interface) with a bunch of accounts reporting.

I have a further datapoint on this as my score recovered, now I'm wondering if there's more going on rather than being a CMS issue... and the resultant score shift sure looks like an all zeros magnitude change at least.

3/10: EX FICO 2 - 765
CSR: 875/43500
DCU: 28/500
Amex Zync $10
Short Account History (AAOA)
Accounts with Balances
Not Using Revolving Credit
Seeking Credit (inquiries)

3/11: EX FICO 2 - 776 +11 points
CSR: 875/43500
DCU: 28/500
Amex Zync $10
CFU: 1685/25000
Short Account History (AAOA)
Accounts with Balances
Seeking Credit (inquiries)
Many New Accounts (AOYA of some flavor)
It appears as though either there's something weird with my file and at least what I read of yours too SJ, where some accounts may not be counted for revolving utilization that we would normally expect to be counted under EX FICO 2... and since this is a mortgage score, it matters. Also I know my HELOC doesn't appear to count too, this looks potentially narrow.

None of these (other than the Amex and the HELOC) are an issue on FICO 8, it's stayed at 827 this entire time.

I don't want to do much with testing this now because I'm less than 2 months out from ticking over 5 years AAOA so need to stabilize balances but I'd be interested to see your listing of accounts when you had your experience with it SJ and others and see if there's any sort of similarity.

Something be unexpectedly strange though.

When mine added "not using revolving credit" I had 8 revolving balances reporting, making lots of use of revolving credit

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 23:34:35 GMT

Would you mind listing tradeline, balance, CL please SJ?

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 03:36:36 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Would you mind listing tradeline, balance, CL please SJ?

What's the difference between tradeline and CL?

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 04:18:43 GMT

I think Rev is just looking to see what type of tradeline it is perhaps.

While I don't know about the scoring model being discussed here in terms of quirks and what it "sees" as revolving credit use, I just noticed for the 3rd month in a row I'm getting the same 2 negative reason statements on my Synchrony (Lowe's) account when I do in fact have revolving balances. This is of course a TU FICO 8 score, but at the time this score generated I had two reported balances, $195 on my Citi card ($23k limit) and $280 or so on a Chase card ($10k limit). My other 5 revolvers on TU had $0 reported balances.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 04:51:39 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
Would you mind listing tradeline, balance, CL please SJ?
What's the difference between tradeline and CL?

Tradeline = Amex / Barclays / DCU / etc.

Balance = current balance

CL = credit limit

Something is apparently discounting things, could be any of the three. More information more better... and suddenly I'm not thinking people were crazy when reporting AZEO fails when apparently leaving a balance on a single card doesn't work on some FICO models.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 17:37:15 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
Would you mind listing tradeline, balance, CL please SJ?
What's the difference between tradeline and CL?
Tradeline = Amex / Barclays / DCU / etc.

Balance = current balance

CL = credit limit

Something is apparently discounting things, could be any of the three. More information more better... and suddenly I'm not thinking people were crazy when reporting AZEO fails when apparently leaving a balance on a single card doesn't work on some FICO models.

[see below]

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 21:14:43 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
Would you mind listing tradeline, balance, CL please SJ?
What's the difference between tradeline and CL?
Tradeline = Amex / Barclays / DCU / etc.

Balance = current balance

CL = credit limit

Something is apparently discounting things, could be any of the three. More information more better... and suddenly I'm not thinking people were crazy when reporting AZEO fails when apparently leaving a balance on a single card doesn't work on some FICO models.

I don't believe anything was being discounted @Revelate .

On the day it reported "not using revolving credit" it was

chase cc 10150/40000

credit union cc 6762/43500

credit union cc 4350/30000

credit union ploc 4103/15000

credit union cc 2460/10000

credit union ploc 2324/10000

credit union cc 59/20000

credit union cc 19/20000

6 days later the "not using revolving credit" code dropped off when the revolving accounts were as follows:

credit union cc 14839/30000

credit union ploc 10549/40000

chase cc 10025/40000

credit union cc 5993/43500

credit union cc 3572/13000

credit union ploc 3092/15000

credit union ploc 2778/10000

credit union cc 2682/10000

credit union cc 2167/20000

credit union cc 1575/20000

santander cc 31/9000

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 19:56:12 GMT

Well that is an interesting bit @SouthJamica and thank you for posting that.

One somewhat obvious similarity is that it is all credit unions and one CL > 35k in your case which absolutely matched mine with a CU card and another > 35k limit bankcard.

Either it is just broken which seems unlikely as the algorithm is the algorithm or that may well be the pattern TBH and not only are outsized tradelines discounted but credit union cards perhaps too.

Need another datapoint or two, come on forum people!

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Thomas_Thumb — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 20:44:41 GMT

Does Fico 98 ignore pure play store cards as revolving (those not co-branded with Visa or Mastercard or AMEX)?

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 21:01:48 GMT

Not sure TT, I didn’t have access to FICO 98 reliably when I had a Wally card and don’t have any store cards to try testing that but it is something that should be checked if we can.

We’ve always recommended using a national bank card for AZEO when it mattered but I don’t recall seeing any good data previously suggesting what may or may not count other than FICO 8 didn’t care and I don’t think FICO 04 did either from what I could test back when Scorewatch was here.

We do get FICO 3 from Experian too, I will double check that one but I strongly suspect there are some exclusions to FICO at this point which I hadn’t thought were a thing personally... like I can’t fathom a reason why CU credit cards might be discounted under any model but their inquiries are differentiated maybe their credit lines are too from this calculation.

Just seems weird, but now that I think of it FICO NG differentiated tradelines including retail cards specifically, and FICO 98 pre-dates it so perhaps not so weird after all from a product development perspective.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

SouthJamaica — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 21:18:37 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Well that is an interesting bit @SouthJamica and thank you for posting that.

One somewhat obvious similarity is that it is all credit unions and one CL > 35k in your case which absolutely matched mine with a CU card and another > 35k limit bankcard.

Either it is just broken which seems unlikely as the algorithm is the algorithm or that may well be the pattern TBH and not only are outsized tradelines discounted but credit union cards perhaps too.

Need another datapoint or two, come on forum people!

I'm going with "broken".

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 01:20:06 GMT

OK, I had an AU store card count on EX2, so it doesn't ignore retail. I'm about to test a Carecredit. Depending on results, I could test a CU or a non-AU retail. Leaning toward retail, cuz my AU retail is ignored by FICO 8.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 22:44:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
OK, I had an AU store card count on EX2, so it doesn't ignore retail I don't think. I'm about to test a Carecredit. Depending on results, I could test a CU or a non-AU retail. Leaning toward retail, cuz my AU retail is ignored by FICO 8.

Was your store card a pure play or cobranded with Visa/MasterCard/AMEX?

Testing a credit union card would be of interest.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 04:19:43 GMT

No sir, TT, straight up pure store card, no co-brand.

I have established that the AU retail card does not count for purposes of FICO 8, but does for EX2:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/AU-efficacy-test/m-p/5566440#M153581

But another member had a NON-AU retail card (Carecredit) not count for FICO 8:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/DP-for-AZEO-and-AU-accounts/m-p/5566450#M153583

Consequently I am about to test my carecredit and see its results on my FICO 8 and EX2. After that I have a choice of three cards: A non-AU retail card (other than carecredit) or one of two CU Visa cards. Who knows I may go another month and test both. Y’all have me curious and enjoying the mystery. Y’all have got me addicted to the FICO bug.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 04:25:46 GMT

Based on recent information reported from the OP in the other thread, his carecredit did in fact count on his EX2, just not his classic 8.

If I have similar results, I think I’m going to close my carecredit account which would quickly report a zero balance and allow me to perform the next test including results on EX2.

If I choose the CU card, I think I’ll avoid the élan backed one since it’s more likely to report like a national bankcard considering it’s a subsidiary of USB.

I just don’t understand why a retail card like carecredit would not count for classic 8.

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 19:07:43 GMT

OK, Revelate, TT and SJ, I have spoken with Cassiecard and he has a PSCU CC. PSCU is the largest processor for CU CCs.

In any event I had him go back and check. When that was his only TL with a balance EX2 was 727. When a second TL reported a balance, he lost six points to 721, indicating the PSCU CC is counting for EX2 purposes.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/The-All-At-Just-Under-8-99-Utilization-experiment/td-p/5448185/page/2

Consequently I think we can conclude if the CU CC processor is PSCU, it will count, and I don’t believe that I need to test my PSCU CU CC. I think a better test would be either the Elan CU CC for EX2 or my non-AU retail card for classic 8 purposes.

There is definitely something going on with CU CC reporting and I’m wondering what processor it is tied to. Anyone know who the payment processor for DCU is?

Re: EX FICO 2: Experian CMS issue or wonkiness?

Revelate — Sun, 14 Apr 2019 06:42:09 GMT

I don't think Elan is a CU .