topic Re: Simulator Error? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Simulator Error?

Andy77 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:40:13 GMT

So, my Fico score now is 653. When I did the simulator of taking out a credit card for 10k and moving my balances to that, my score only went up to 668.

I opened an unsecured personal loan for 10k and will move my balances to that, I would imagine my score would go up more then just 15 points, per the simulation above, right?

Any thoughts?

Re: Simulator Error?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 01:55:58 GMT

Lots of varibles in play here-

Current UTL, Avg age, INQ hit,

If your UTL is high- moving the debt to a Installment will help your score- (as UTL is 30% of score)

If your UTL is low- opening an installment account would lower you score. (INQ, New account, no change in UTL)

This sim always tells me + or - 10 points for a new CC.

So It sounds like adding a TL may benefit you-

Andy77 wrote:

So, my Fico score now is 653. When I did the simulator of taking out a credit card for 10k and moving my balances to that, my score only went up to 668.

I opened an unsecured personal loan for 10k and will move my balances to that, I would imagine my score would go up more then just 15 points, per the simulation above, right?

Any thoughts?

Re: Simulator Error?

Andy77 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:00:51 GMT

Currently this is where I stand...

Cap One CL: 4100 Bal:4050

Orchard Bank CL 2200 Bal 2150

Dell CL 2500 Bal 2495

First Premier CL 1000 Bal 1029

Chevron CL 1000 Bal 432.00

Exxon CL 850 Bal 225

Shell 750 Bal 75

BofA CL 800 Bal 810

then after I consolidate with 10k loan I will be here:

Cap One CL: 4100 Bal:50.00

Orchard Bank CL 2200 Bal 0

Dell CL 2500 Bal 0

First Premier CL 1000 Bal 800.00 - moving this to Orchard to bring down utilization and ratio

Chevron CL 1000 Bal 432.00

Exxon CL 850 Bal 0

Shell 750 Bal 0

BofA CL 800 Bal 0

Therefore, I think my score will go higher then 1 points from 653..

What do you think?

Re: Simulator Error?

RobertEG — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:02:10 GMT

Probably not. Opening an install loan to pay off CC debt does not add the 10K increase in revolv CL to reduce your revolv %util. It also adds a new hard inq for the install loan, and adds a new install account which will initially be at 100%util. Unless you have no other install loans, it will probably not improve your credit mix. I would expect little or no improvement in FICO with this scenario, and possibly even a drop.

Re: Simulator Error?

Andy77 — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:09:44 GMT

Well, I am thinking it will go up a lot more then 10 or 15 points because my revolving utilil will go from 95% to 9.2%

I also have a an auto loan for 35k and a paid and closed mortgage from 97.

Yeah I might take a hit for the inq, but I am thinking not because I applied to 5 lenders and after 5 new inq, I did not notice a change...however, I saw my score go from 698 to 653 reason was due to high cc utilization.

what do you think?

Re: Simulator Error?

fused — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:12:46 GMT

IMHO, the score sim is hardly accurate.

Re: Simulator Error?

fused — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:14:11 GMT

I still think you are going to see a sizable gain in points.

Re: Simulator Error?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:15:05 GMT

I think you will be fine-

4 maxed cards all by themselves is costing 40-60 points

Over UTL upto another 100 points-

I like the installment plan idea-

Andy77 wrote:

Well, I am thinking it will go up a lot more then 10 or 15 points because my revolving utilil will go from 95% to 9.2%

I also have a an auto loan for 35k and a paid and closed mortgage from 97.

Yeah I might take a hit for the inq, but I am thinking not because I applied to 5 lenders and after 5 new inq, I did not notice a change...however, I saw my score go from 698 to 653 reason was due to high cc utilization.

what do you think?

Re: Simulator Error?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:16:55 GMT

Yep-

The sim is only good at Overall UTL and time of ontime payments-

It does not consider baddies falling off, maxed out CC's or number of accounts with balances.

fused wrote:

IMHO, the score sim is hardly accurate.

Re: Simulator Error?

fused — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:21:21 GMT

Timothy, here's some background info on Andy's situation. It's my opinion that he should be in the 700 club after the dust settles.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/message?board.id=loans&thread.id=8621&jump=true

Re: Simulator Error?

RobertEG — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:53:12 GMT

All I would add, Andy, is that the explanations given for plus or minus factors that accompany your scores are usually wrong, and often totally contradictory. They are driven off of specific flags that do not take into account all factors. Most simply ignore any reasons given that attempt to explain changes or plus/minus factors. I find them useless.

Re: Simulator Error?

fused — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:01:55 GMT

RobertEG wrote:

All I would add, Andy, is that the explanations given for plus or minus factors that accompany your scores are usually wrong, and often totally contradictory. They are driven off of specific flags that do not take into account all factors. Most simply ignore any reasons given that attempt to explain changes or plus/minus factors. I find them useless.

Do you think he will reach the 700 club? Reducing reporting revolving util from 95% to 9.20% is huge. I have seen much smaller decreases in revolving util land people 40-60 point increases.

Re: Simulator Error?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:15:10 GMT

I had a 80 point difference between 43% and 5%.

I can see him in the 700 club easy.

fused wrote:

RobertEG wrote:

All I would add, Andy, is that the explanations given for plus or minus factors that accompany your scores are usually wrong, and often totally contradictory. They are driven off of specific flags that do not take into account all factors. Most simply ignore any reasons given that attempt to explain changes or plus/minus factors. I find them useless.

Do you think he will reach the 700 club? Reducing reporting revolving util from 95% to 9.20% is huge. I have seen much smaller decreases in revolving util land people 40-60 point increases.

Re: Simulator Error?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:39:47 GMT

Don't quote me on this, but, I think you'll get some points at least on the accounts that would report a $0 balance; least that I got from my own score simulator (credit keeper). I'm almost certain

fico takes into consideration the number of accts. reporting a balance, but I could be wrong.

Anyone else care to validate this assumption?

Re: Simulator Error?

marty56 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:41:32 GMT

Just got my EQ score and I was told the best action would be is:

Best Action - Pay Down 90%-100% of Your Credit Card Balances - Over the Next 24 Months

Only problem is that my CC balance is $88 which is 1% (rounded up) so I could never do that.

They correct comment would have been to keep paying bills on time over the next 24 months.

Almost seems the best action comments are random or they are copying FAKO comments. As I said before, the simulator is uselss.