topic Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2 in Understanding FICO® Scoring

So my FICO8 is capped at 774 not even AZEO helps (was: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2)

Anonymous — Wed, 15 May 2019 10:59:23 GMT

Some data to share:

Today my only inquiry aged off my EX report (ie, hit 12m). I have 10 open and 4 closed accounts, oldest 4y8m AAoA 3y5m and very low utilization (under 1%).

No other changes on my report between yesterday and today.

EX FICO8 771 to 774
EX FICO2 786 to 797

Per CCT

UPDATE: See my recent post on the thread (page 4 for me). I achieved AZEO on my account and my score is still 774.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 03:16:01 GMT

Interestingly it doesn't look like there was any score change for newest account reaching 1 year.

I opened two cards with the inquiry that just aged off, but the cards both have an April 1 date on EX (even though they were later in April).

Between end of March and beginning of April there way no change in my FICO8, it was 771 before and after April 1.

So whatever new account penalty exists other than the inquiry itself looks like it wears off earlier than a year or else doesn't actually exist.

Didn't look at my FICO2 unfortunately so can't speak to whether it was impacted.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 03:25:57 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

So whatever new account penalty exists other than the inquiry itself looks like it wears off earlier than a year or else doesn't actually exist.

Two things. One, an inquiry does not age off of your report at 12 months. It becomes unscoreable at 365 days yes, but will remain on your report for another year.

Second your statement I quoted above definitely is not the case. AoYA moving from < 12 months to 12+ months is a significant change and one that typically results in a 15-20 point FICO score gain. Relative to the (say) 4-5 point change associated with an inquiry, the AoYA threshold you mentioned is far more significant. If your score did not approve on the 1st of the month when your AoYA reached 12 months either there must be an error in your calculation, or your profile is simply not reacting (for whatever reason) to this event like we've come to expect. My guess is that there was an adverse scoring event that happened at the same relative time that masked your gain associated with the positive AoYA threshold crossing.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 04:05:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Some data to share:

Today my only inquiry aged off my EX report (ie, hit 12m). I have 10 open and 4 closed accounts, oldest 4y8m AAoA 3y5m and very low utilization (under 1%).

No other changes on my report between yesterday and today.

EX FICO8 771 to 774
EX FICO2 786 to 797

Per CCT

Was this inquiry tied to a new account as opposed to something like a CLI? Do you still have any new accounts under 12 months age as would be the case if a new account HP was pulled from a different CRA?

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:59:32 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

So whatever new account penalty exists other than the inquiry itself looks like it wears off earlier than a year or else doesn't actually exist.

Two things. One, an inquiry does not age off of your report at 12 months. It becomes unscoreable at 365 days yes, but will remain on your report for another year.

Second your statement I quoted above definitely is not the case. AoYA moving from < 12 months to 12+ months is a significant change and one that typically results in a 15-20 point FICO score gain. Relative to the (say) 4-5 point change associated with an inquiry, the AoYA threshold you mentioned is far more significant. If your score did not approve on the 1st of the month when your AoYA reached 12 months either there must be an error in your calculation, or your profile is simply not reacting (for whatever reason) to this event like we've come to expect. My guess is that there was an adverse scoring event that happened at the same relative time that masked your gain associated with the positive AoYA threshold crossing.

Certainly I was hoping for and expecting more than 3 points from 2 accounts going >12m and the last inq aging past 12 months. I was kind of hoping I would see my score get up into the 780's, given the mortgage app is coming up. But it didn't happen. The FICO2 at 797 is promising, but the FICO8 is just stuck there in the low 770's and only moved a few points.

There's no adverse scoring event. When it happened I was working towards AZEO. With every recent update to my credit report my utilization has reduced, the number of cards reporting a balance reduced (from 4 to 2), my overall utilization reduced. None of those changes budged my score an inch. AAYA going over 12 months made no difference. The inquiry aging to 12 months DID have an impact--I got a whole 3 points on FICO8. On FICO2 I got 11 points, which is much better. But FICO8 doesn't seem very sensitive to any of this.

There's no other derogatories on my file. No lates, no records, no collections--my file is clean. What holds back my score is age of oldest account is only around 4.5 years.

I used Experian's Credit Check Total to update my score every day for the last few days, looking only at the EX FICO8 scores that it provides daily. CCT is run by Experian, so it's not "my" calcualtion, it's Experian's. If it's calculating wrong then Experian is calculating wrong.

So that's data: On my file, on EX, for FICO8 it didn't make any difference. I only recently started this daily monitoring (planning a mortgage app soon) so I don't know if it mattered at the 6 month mark or 9 month mark or some other point in time. It didn't matter at 12.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:58:13 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Some data to share:

Today my only inquiry aged off my EX report (ie, hit 12m). I have 10 open and 4 closed accounts, oldest 4y8m AAoA 3y5m and very low utilization (under 1%).

No other changes on my report between yesterday and today.

EX FICO8 771 to 774
EX FICO2 786 to 797

Per CCT
Was this inquiry tied to a new account as opposed to something like a CLI? Do you still have any new accounts under 12 months age as would be the case if a new account HP was pulled from a different CRA?

The inquiry was Bank of America pulling my credit to issue two credit cards. The inqury was April 11th. The first card was issued April 11th, and, the second I think around April 20th. They re-used the same HP for the second card. On my EX file both the cards show up with April 1st as their date issued even though it was acutally later in the month--I see that EX always lists the 1st of the month for every card like that.

So with April 1 listed as the issue date for both cards it was interesting to see no score change between March 31 and April 1. When the inquiry itself aged to 12 months on the 11th I got a 3pt bump.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 12:56:22 GMT

TT, is there a certain clean scorecard that doesn't react like the others when talking AoYA reaching 12 months? If so, I have not heard of it in my forum readings over the years.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 16:39:38 GMT

Not that I am aware but, that is hard to nail down since we don't really know what scorecard each profile is on.

Although both cards issued list 4/1 as a date with one not being issued until 4/20, I wonder if there could be a difference in dates on the CRA report. It will be interesting to see if something happens 4/20 or 5/1. Also, I am still unclear if there are potentially other new accounts under 12 months age that did not result in a HP on EX.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 17:28:21 GMT

No other new accounts. After last April I went into the garden in anticipation of a mortgage application sometime this spring. Last month I started paying my balances ahead of statement to lower reported utilization with the goal of being AZEO when I apply. So during this time my utilization has been under 1 percent and less than 5% on the highest card.

I checked on March 29, 30, 31 and April 1, 2 and there were no changes of any kind on my EX report on those days and no change to FICO8.

Between April 3rd and 10th a few cards reported zero balance and one reported a 4% balance, with no change in score. On April 11 the inquiry aged to 12 months and FICO8 score increased 3 points while FICO2 jumped 11 points.

Unfortunately I wasn't looking at FICO2 during March so that MAY have changed April 1. FICO8 didn't. I also only looked at EX so I don't know what TU and EQ did.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 17:37:18 GMT

I bet you get your points on the first.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 00:51:08 GMT

If I don't app anything by the end of the month I'll update and let you know. (I may do the mortgage app once my current round of statements post, if I convince myself Seattle prices aren't too insane.)

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Revelate — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 01:19:14 GMT

Contributing a random datapoint too why not.

EX Inquiry: clean file other than a CFA, scores had been flat for a bit with no balance changes so clean datapoint. Chase business credit card app so absolutely zero grace period or any other shennigans.

3->4 inquiries

FICO 8: 827 -> 824

FICO 3: 777 -> 770

FICO 2: 776 -> 771

Interesting to note that on FICO 2 my "Seeking Credit" (which is Inquiries) went from reason code #3 to reason code #2, without any change in balances (it jumped accounts with balances reason code)

Actually CiS I didn't see it in the thread, but what was the change in your number of scoreable inquiries for your datapoint?

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 19:32:19 GMT

From 1 scoreable inquiry and 2 new accounts to 0 inquiries and 0 new accounts.

(New meaning <12m)

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 10:02:09 GMT

I have a theory what's going on. I have 10 open accounts and 4 closed accounts. That's 14 in total. But my whole file is only 4y 8m and my AAoA is 3y 5m. My theory: 14 accounts puts me in some thick scorecard that expects me to have a much higher age of oldest account, and this is putting some kind of limit on my score, which I'm close to.

I'm at 774 now with no derogs, 1% overall util, and 2% on highest card, with 3 accounts reporting. In the next couple weeks that will drop to 1 account reporting, so we'll see what effect that has. It looks like at this point anything I do picks up only 1 or 2 points, so I'm probably approaching some limit--and the missing points are for things like an installment loan (which I don't have) and a much older AAoA.

Anyway, I did not put any application in so we'll see what happens May 1st. Two things could: Maybe 3y6m is a key AAoA date and maybe I'll finally get some points for the inquiry and youngest account both aging to 12m.

If that theory is true then it generates some advice to people starting new, fresh credit histories, like I did: Stay under 6 accounts to stay on a thin-file scorecard until you have sufficient AAoA and age of oldest account to go for more.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 12:32:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I have a theory what's going on. I have 10 open accounts and 4 closed accounts. That's 14 in total. But my whole file is only 4y 8m and my AAoA is 3y 5m. My theory: 14 accounts puts me in some thick scorecard that expects me to have a much higher age of oldest account, and this is putting some kind of limit on my score, which I'm close to.

You file is definitely thick, but that doesn't mean that there's any "expectation" that it should be older. People can and have opened up 10-15 accounts in thier first (say) 2 years of entering the credit world, resulting in a quite thick file that's still young.

You indirectly identified your constraint here though IMO, which is your AoOA. It's not that your AoOA is "expected" to be greater, simply that it isn't greater at this stage of the game for you. There are some scoring models (CGID has referenced them) that look at the variance between AoOA and AAoA that can penalize someone for the variance being too great. In your case, this variance is very small, which is actually a good thing as your file continues to age.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Revelate — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 12:54:36 GMT

Hrm; my file on EX is not appreciably better than yours except I have an oldest account that is just under 11 years.

My AAOA a shade under 5 year vs yours I think is a wash.

Could you post all your reason codes please for EX FICO 8 and EX FICO 2 if you have them?

I have good Experian resolution through EX’s CMS and I am clean there other than CFA, new accounts, inquiries, and of course short credit history and a suboptimal installment utilization. Not in that order admittedly.

I also have plenty of accounts haha.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 23:49:30 GMT

CiS No, you will not get inquiry points back at any other time then 365 days later. You very well may get points for your youngest account aging over a year, tho and who knows, maybe 42 months is an AAOA threshold that will give you another three points or so.

Hopefully those reason codes may offer a clue.

@CassieCard has done some interesting research on AoYA activity with young AooAs and may be can offer some unique insight from research? i’ll ask Cassie to chime in.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2019 01:12:53 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Hrm; my file on EX is not appreciably better than yours except I have an oldest account that is just under 11 years.

My AAOA a shade under 5 year vs yours I think is a wash.

Could you post all your reason codes please for EX FICO 8 and EX FICO 2 if you have them?

I have good Experian resolution through EX’s CMS and I am clean there other than CFA, new accounts, inquiries, and of course short credit history and a suboptimal installment utilization. Not in that order admittedly.

I also have plenty of accounts haha.

What I'm wondering is whether number of accounts bucketed me into a scorecard that is then penalizing me for my AAoA, in a way that I wouldn't have been penalized if I had fewer accounts and landed in a different score card.

Here are the reason codes for FICO8 EX from CCT, generated today (774 score):

What's helping your score?

No Missed Payments

Low Revolving Credit Usage

Recent Credit Card Usage

Not Seeking Credit

What's hurting your score?

Short Account History

FICO Score 2 is making more sense based on where I am than FICO SCORE 8 (at least to me). It's at 797 and probably DID jump on the inquiry rolling over 12m and last new account aging >1y (I didn't check before that):

What's harming your score?

Short Account History

Many New Accounts

Accounts With Balances

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2019 01:19:06 GMT

And here's my score history for FICO SCORE 8 EX:

March 20 - 771

March 31 - 771 still

April 1 - 771 still (should have changed but didn't - youngest account just went >1yr)

April 4 - 771 still

April 6 to 10 - 771 every day (checked every day)

April 11 - 774 (inquiry aged >12)

Since then it has flipped between 772 and 774 depending on how many accounts reporting a balance (2 vs 3).

It's been 774 since April 19th.

We'll see tomorrow Then later in the month I may actually achieve AZEO and then we'll see how that impacts.

Re: Effect of one inquiry on FICO8 and FICO2

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2019 01:45:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
What I'm wondering is whether number of accounts bucketed me into a scorecard that is then penalizing me for my AAoA, in a way that I wouldn't have been penalized if I had fewer accounts and landed in a different score card.

I have not heard of number of accounts influencing AAoA in any way outside of the obvious "average" factor that additional accounts will impact. How many total accounts do you have? I think it's been theorized here on MF that the "sweet spot" for number of accounts may be somewhere in the 10-20 range, where having fewer than that range or more than that range could [ever so slightly] adversely impact FICO score.