topic Re: Inquiries Score Boost in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 12:48:15 GMT

I see it mentioned a lot about a score boost from not having any inquiries in 1 year, and that is is always best to wait to apply for credit until that time since you will get 10 to 15 points. I have passed that time now and have not seen any increase in my fico 8 scores, I did just get my fico 9 from wells fargo and it went up 9 last month and 13 this month. Why is my fico 8 not getting a similar score increase as well?

Random question that I don't feel like deserves a thread. 4 of my collection accounts are with 1 agency, and they were updating monthly every month. In April they updated 4 times and have not updated since, why would they do that?

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 15:00:52 GMT

All of the different scoring methodologies vary quite a bit and it is almost impossible to figure out why one went up and another didn't. As to why you didn't get a score jump after no inquiries for a year, you probably have other factors on your report that are keeping your score down.

May I ask why you are so worried about your credit score at the moment? Are you waiting to apply for a card, loan or mortgage? You only really need to worry about your credit score when you are actively looking for new credit. If you can wait, time is your best friend when it comes to increasing your score.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 15:13:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

May I ask why you are so worried about your credit score at the moment? Are you waiting to apply for a card, loan or mortgage? You only really need to worry about your credit score when you are actively looking for new credit.

That's not necessarily true. Your current lenders as well as potential lenders can be soft pulling your credit at any time for account maintenance and/or simply information. That being said, it's a good idea to "worry" about your credit to some degree even if you aren't planning on apping, as things such as high utilization or negative information could lead to potential AA.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 19:50:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
All of the different scoring methodologies vary quite a bit and it is almost impossible to figure out why one went up and another didn't. As to why you didn't get a score jump after no inquiries for a year, you probably have other factors on your report that are keeping your score down.

May I ask why you are so worried about your credit score at the moment? Are you waiting to apply for a card, loan or mortgage? You only really need to worry about your credit score when you are actively looking for new credit. If you can wait, time is your best friend when it comes to increasing your score.

I am going to be getting a mortgage in the future (around 2 to 3 years) but I will not be applying for anything for at least a year. I will more then likely get something in a year, like a loan or credit card, but nothing right around the corner. As for why I am so worried about it, I don't feel like I am worried about it, I started trying to fix my credit 22 months ago, and my score has gone up 360+ points. I won't be completely content with my score until it is 850 in several years, but I was also someone who wouldn't accept less then a 4.0 in school, I simply want to be the best that I can. My score right now is not the best it can be, it is WAY better then what it was 22 months ago but not good enough for me.

Back to my original question, it is simply confusing to me why I saw no increase, because I see it mentioned so much on this forum as if it is something that will always happen. To not even get 3 to 5 points confuses me, other people are getting 10 to 15 point increases and I don't get anything..? but I guess I was looking forward to some sort of increase that wasn't guaranteed for everyone, which I thought it was.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 15:27:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Back to my original question, it is simply confusing to me why I saw no increase, because I see it mentioned so much on this forum as if it is something that will always happen. To not even get 3 to 5 points confuses me, other people are getting 10 to 15 point increases and I don't get anything..? but I guess I was looking forward to some sort of increase that wasn't guaranteed for everyone, which I thought it was.

In your original post you didn't mention what your before/after scoreable inquiries (within the last 365 days) were. You could have moved from 1 --> 0, or perhaps (say) 25 --> 0, or anything in between. Your answer to that question would shed a lot more light on the potential score increase that perhaps should have been realized. It also depends on inquiry type. Using the 25 --> 0 example above, if 24 of them were coded around the same time for an auto loan and 1 was coded from a CC, from a scoring perspective you moved from 2 --> 0. Just something to consider. Inquiries are believed to be bucketed and for all we know profile dependent as well, so a move from say 1 --> 0 or 2 --> 0 could possibly result in no score gains.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 15:43:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Back to my original question, it is simply confusing to me why I saw no increase, because I see it mentioned so much on this forum as if it is something that will always happen. To not even get 3 to 5 points confuses me, other people are getting 10 to 15 point increases and I don't get anything..? but I guess I was looking forward to some sort of increase that wasn't guaranteed for everyone, which I thought it was.
In your original post you didn't mention what your before/after scoreable inquiries (within the last 365 days) were. You could have moved from 1 --> 0, or perhaps (say) 25 --> 0, or anything in between. Your answer to that question would shed a lot more light on the potential score increase that perhaps should have been realized. It also depends on inquiry type. Using the 25 --> 0 example above, if 24 of them were coded around the same time for an auto loan and 1 was coded from a CC, from a scoring perspective you moved from 2 --> 0. Just something to consider. Inquiries are believed to be bucketed and for all we know profile dependent as well, so a move from say 1 --> 0 or 2 --> 0 could possibly result in no score gains.

Ok, so in total I have 4 inquiries, 2 on EQ and EX and 3 on TU. 1 of those will be removed in October of this year from all 3 (capital one) but the other 3 were the ones still scoreable. So I went from 3 to 0. The inquiries are all for credit cards as well.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:06:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Ok, so in total I have 4 inquiries, 2 on EQ and EX and 3 on TU. 1 of those will be removed in October of this year from all 3 (capital one) but the other 3 were the ones still scoreable. So I went from 3 to 0. The inquiries are all for credit cards as well.

So, on TU it sounds like you went from 3 scoreable inquiries to 0, where on EX/EQ you went from 2 scoreable inquiries to 0. I would think on most profiles one would expect maybe a 3-5 point gain on EX/EQ where if TU crossed 2 buckets perhaps 6-10 points there. Of course all of these things can be profile-specific, so you never really know.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

dynamicvb — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:17:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Back to my original question, it is simply confusing to me why I saw no increase, because I see it mentioned so much on this forum as if it is something that will always happen. To not even get 3 to 5 points confuses me, other people are getting 10 to 15 point increases and I don't get anything..? but I guess I was looking forward to some sort of increase that wasn't guaranteed for everyone, which I thought it was.
In your original post you didn't mention what your before/after scoreable inquiries (within the last 365 days) were. You could have moved from 1 --> 0, or perhaps (say) 25 --> 0, or anything in between. Your answer to that question would shed a lot more light on the potential score increase that perhaps should have been realized. It also depends on inquiry type. Using the 25 --> 0 example above, if 24 of them were coded around the same time for an auto loan and 1 was coded from a CC, from a scoring perspective you moved from 2 --> 0. Just something to consider. Inquiries are believed to be bucketed and for all we know profile dependent as well, so a move from say 1 --> 0 or 2 --> 0 could possibly result in no score gains.
Ok, so in total I have 4 inquiries, 2 on EQ and EX and 3 on TU. 1 of those will be removed in October of this year from all 3 (capital one) but the other 3 were the ones still scoreable. So I went from 3 to 0. The inquiries are all for credit cards as well.

Actually, these are not counted in aggregate but by each CRA, so if one fell on all three you went down one. On EX and EQ and went to 0 on TU. I have never really understood these and the points lost or gained. I've applied for several new accounts over the last year and I have between 7 and 2 scorable inquires on my various CRA reports. I have never seen any points lost from taking another inquiry and I have not seen any points gained from one reaching a year.

I say this with some reservation as I could have had points gained or lost I just could not isolate because utilization and number of revolvers reporting are also changing at the same time. I don't sweat the few points I might get from AZEO so my cards just report whatever balance may be on them from use before I pay them.

I do have a fairly thick file with some age on my oldest of 13 years and average of 7.5. I don't know for sure, but I think that the age of your file influences whether you take hits from a few inquiries.

From what I've seen around these forums most that seem to complain about points from inquiries or new accounts are down to under 3 years on their average. I have a sneaking suspicion this is an influencing factor, but like I said I'm far from an expert and most of this is taken from just looking at my file, my wife's file and my son's( who has a lot less history). I could be totally off base as this is just a hypothesis of mine.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jul 2019 19:52:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Ok, so in total I have 4 inquiries, 2 on EQ and EX and 3 on TU. 1 of those will be removed in October of this year from all 3 (capital one) but the other 3 were the ones still scoreable. So I went from 3 to 0. The inquiries are all for credit cards as well.
So, on TU it sounds like you went from 3 scoreable inquiries to 0, where on EX/EQ you went from 2 scoreable inquiries to 0. I would think on most profiles one would expect maybe a 3-5 point gain on EX/EQ where if TU crossed 2 buckets perhaps 6-10 points there. Of course all of these things can be profile-specific, so you never really know.

I was excited for the increase but it's not really a big deal. I got a very nice increase on fico 9, I still find it odd I didn't even get 1 to 2 points though.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 00:10:20 GMT

Are you saying all three inquiries aged to 365 days on the same day? Did you lose one at each bureau?

Did you lose points for the inquiry is when you took them?

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:03:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Are you saying all three inquiries aged to 365 days on the same day? Did you lose one at each bureau?

Did you lose points for the inquiry is when you took them?

Yes I am saying that. I got my American Express, Discover, and Wells Fargo June 5th, 2018. I did lose 1 point in total but I immediately got it back on the 6th month. I am sorry I don't know what you mean by lose one at each bureau, are you talking about them completely falling off or becoming not scoreable?

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:22:50 GMT

Your "random question" in your original post is directly related to you not receiving a scoring bump after inquiries became unscoreable. By your own admission you have 4 derogatories on your credit report, and they can definitely affect any scoring increase you might have otherwise gotten.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:41:26 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Your "random question" in your original post is directly related to you not receiving a scoring bump after inquiries became unscoreable. By your own admission you have 4 derogatories on your credit report, and they can definitely affect any scoring increase you might have otherwise gotten.

I have to respectfully disagree with that, if that was the case I wouldn't have seen the increase I was expecting on my fico 8 on my fico 9. Also I have more then 4, I had 19, 7 months ago and still got increases for things. I now have 11 on TU, 9 on EX and 4 on EQ. I still get increases for many things despite all these derogatory accounts. Random side note, I didn't know about this 10 to 15 point increase when I first got my Capital One card because I wasn't on the forum, however I got this type of increase when my account hit a year, so I feel the derogatory accounts being the reason I did not receive an increase this time is not valid, especially considering, I had over 19 collection accounts at the time that I got that increase. (I would have to go back and look at the report if it is still there to see the exact amount I had)

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:54:44 GMT

Are any of your derogatories medical collections? The FICO 9 penalty for medical collections is less severe than under FICO 8. Plus any collection that has been paid does not affect FICO 9 score while under FICO 8 they will still influence your score. You can disagree but the presence of derogatories on your credit report dampen or reduce any positive changes in your scores.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 17:00:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Are any of your derogatories medical collections? The FICO 9 penalty for medical collections is less severe than under FICO 8. Plus any collection that has been paid does not affect FICO 9 score while under FICO 8 they will still influence your score. You can disagree but the presence of derogatories on your credit report dampen or reduce any positive changes in your scores.

Yes they all are, I will in fact NEVER get a collection that isn't medical. I agree it does severely lower my score and chances of getting better increases from positive changes I make, I disagreed with not getting an increase at all was specifically because of the collections. I can only imagine my increase would have been better for Capital One back then if I didn't have collections.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 17:13:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Are any of your derogatories medical collections? The FICO 9 penalty for medical collections is less severe than under FICO 8. Plus any collection that has been paid does not affect FICO 9 score while under FICO 8 they will still influence your score. You can disagree but the presence of derogatories on your credit report dampen or reduce any positive changes in your scores.
Yes they all are, I will in fact NEVER get a collection that isn't medical. I agree it does severely lower my score and chances of getting better increases from positive changes I make, I disagreed with not getting an increase at all was specifically because of the collections. I can only imagine my increase would have been better for Capital One back then if I didn't have collections.

You're disagreeing with something I never said; nowhere did I claim that you would not get any increases because of the presence of collections. But anyway it appears that you already have all the answers; I'm not even sure at this point why you bothered to ask the question(s).

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 17:38:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Are any of your derogatories medical collections? The FICO 9 penalty for medical collections is less severe than under FICO 8. Plus any collection that has been paid does not affect FICO 9 score while under FICO 8 they will still influence your score. You can disagree but the presence of derogatories on your credit report dampen or reduce any positive changes in your scores.
Yes they all are, I will in fact NEVER get a collection that isn't medical. I agree it does severely lower my score and chances of getting better increases from positive changes I make, I disagreed with not getting an increase at all was specifically because of the collections. I can only imagine my increase would have been better for Capital One back then if I didn't have collections.
You're disagreeing with something I never said; nowhere did I claim that you would not get any increases because of the presence of collections. But anyway it appears that you already have all the answers; I'm not even sure at this point why you bothered to ask the question(s).

What is funny is after I posted my message I went back to read it and I knew I should have worded that part differently. (Your aggressive reaction is the reason I thought that) I decided against doing that, which I now regret, I should have edited that part. I definitely don't have all the answers, and I don't even recall claiming I did either? I think it is interesting, me disagreeing with you now makes you believe I think I have all the answers, which is very interesting. Anyways note taken, next time, when I think I need to edit something I will.

btw it seems I have somehow offended you, and for that I apologize. I wish we were having this conversation in person because the reaction that you just had in your last post would have definitely not occurred. Side note, your last post gives me a very weird vibe, that came out of nowwhere. This is exactly why I do not on talk on forums very often. Once again it is VERY clear I have offended you, and I can't apologize for that enough. Have a nice day.

Another side note I actually had logged off my computer and I thought you know what, I should see if they responded again. That was also a mistake.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 19:46:44 GMT

OP, when I said one falling off of each bureau I meant, from the three inquiries that aged 365 days, was one at each bureau?

Actually that’s a good catch MaizeandBlue. And OP, I believe he is correct that the presence of derogatory‘s will affect AoYA awards and inquiry points. Also be aware I think, collections under $100 are not counted on FICO 8.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 20:54:03 GMT

@dynamicvb wrote:

I do have a fairly thick file with some age on my oldest of 13 years and average of 7.5. I don't know for sure, but I think that the age of your file influences whether you take hits from a few inquiries.

From what I've seen around these forums most that seem to complain about points from inquiries or new accounts are down to under 3 years on their average. I have a sneaking suspicion this is an influencing factor, but like I said I'm far from an expert and most of this is taken from just looking at my file, my wife's file and my son's( who has a lot less history). I could be totally off base as this is just a hypothesis of mine.

Your hypothesis is correct. The point loss from a single inquiry can easily be 17 to 20 points on young/thin files. I've experienced it myself with EQ/EX -20/-19 points from applying for a single card from Citi. (Double-pulls also common to young/thin files.)

Even more supporting evidence can be found by browsing Reddit's credit forums where the majority of posters are college students getting their first cards. They'll casually mention stuff like 'taking the usual 17 point hit from an inquiry', because so many people there have experienced it.

Re: Inquiries Score Boost

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jul 2019 21:15:41 GMT

@Anonymous often on the MyFico Forum posters will look seriously at your concerns and discover they need more information or clarifcation as they consider possibilities as to why something is taking place. It can appear to be aggressive when in fact, some of the posters are quite knowledgeable and get so into the nitty gritty of it not just on the surface. It is hard to always give the needed knowledge until posters get into it and discover what they may need to offer you the better answer.

The MyFico Forum has posters experienced in several areas one being Auto, Mortgages, and of late there is an ongoing study of effects on the various FICO Scores that exist.

No one is really trying to be less than helpful but, if you are new this information would not have been something you'd know. Hope this helps you to better understand the intent of information seeking.