topic Helped me understand Transunion scoring? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 17:23:08 GMT

This isn’t a bash Transunion thread but I need to understand the logic behind the scoring of Transunion. Personally, for me, ever since I have had a credit score, Transunion has always been the lowest of my scores. They have also been hard to deal with, if any disputes are needed.

They are the only credit bureau that has locked me out of the online dispute process, I was told my account is in special status, but to me its being flagged, due to CFPB and Legal letter being written to them in the past, to correct issues they refused to work on.

Transunion is also the only Bureau that doesn’t recognize 2 AU accounts, which came about from contacting CFPB and Legal letters to them, hence the special account “status”

For early April I have no baddies, 0 late payments on my accounts and new accounts have been opened within the last 10 months, here is the following

Transunion Score 676 , 2 inqs, 33% Ulti (complete), 7 CC and 1 personal loan with balances

Equifax Score 693, 2 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances

Experian Score 707, 5 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances

May is going to be good month for me 3 personal CC paid down and Ulti even lower, I cant wait to see how the scoring is when they get updated by all 3

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

dragontears — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 17:27:49 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
This isn’t a bash Transunion thread but I need to understand the logic behind the scoring of Transunion. Personally, for me, ever since I have had a credit score, Transunion has always been the lowest of my scores. They have also been hard to deal with, if any disputes are needed.

They are the only credit bureau that has locked me out of the online dispute process, I was told my account is in special status, but to me its being flagged, due to CFPB and Legal letter being written to them in the past, to correct issues they refused to work on.
Transunion is also the only Bureau that doesn’t recognize 2 AU accounts, which came about from contacting CFPB and Legal letters to them, hence the special account “status”

For early April I have no baddies, 0 late payments on my accounts and new accounts have been opened within the last 10 months, here is the following
Transunion Score 676 , 2 inqs, 33% Ulti (complete), 7 CC and 1 personal loan with balances
Equifax Score 693, 2 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances
Experian Score 707, 5 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances

May is going to be good month for me 3 personal CC paid down and Ulti even lower, I cant wait to see how the scoring is when they get updated by all 3

I am not sure of what your question is

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 17:40:04 GMT

Seems that Transunion scores have alaways been lower than Equifax and Experian when it comes to my credit score. It would seem maybe those AU cards are helping me with Equifax and Experian but when I did have them on Transunion my score was still lower by 10 to 20 pts ...Trying to understand how Transunion scores....

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

thornback — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 18:07:31 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
Seems that Transunion scores have alaways been lower than Equifax and Experian when it comes to my credit score. It would seem maybe those AU cards are helping me with Equifax and Experian but when I did have them on Transunion my score was still lower by 10 to 20 pts ...Trying to understand how Transunion scores....

A 10-20 point gap is normal though. My EQ has always been my lowest and is currently 20+ lower than the other 2. My EX and EQ are identical account wise but calculate a 15-20+ point difference. My TU is the only bureau that does not report my AU but its score is just as high (sometimes higher) than EX.

Each bureau tweaks the FICO algorithm a bit to suit their scoring preferences - which is why all 3 scores differ, sometimes only slightly but other times more than. Sucks sometimes but there's nothing you can do about it if all the data reported is accurate.

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 18:34:52 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
This isn’t a bash Transunion thread but I need to understand the logic behind the scoring of Transunion. Personally, for me, ever since I have had a credit score, Transunion has always been the lowest of my scores. They have also been hard to deal with, if any disputes are needed.

They are the only credit bureau that has locked me out of the online dispute process, I was told my account is in special status, but to me its being flagged, due to CFPB and Legal letter being written to them in the past, to correct issues they refused to work on.
Transunion is also the only Bureau that doesn’t recognize 2 AU accounts, which came about from contacting CFPB and Legal letters to them, hence the special account “status”

For early April I have no baddies, 0 late payments on my accounts and new accounts have been opened within the last 10 months, here is the following
Transunion Score 676 , 2 inqs, 33% Ulti (complete), 7 CC and 1 personal loan with balances
Equifax Score 693, 2 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances
Experian Score 707, 5 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances

May is going to be good month for me 3 personal CC paid down and Ulti even lower, I cant wait to see how the scoring is when they get updated by all 3

Your transunion credit SCORE is not the issue.

Your transunion credit REPORT is the issue.

the credit score is an automated algorithm. its just math and it does not discriminate or care about who where when or why. it only cares about what. what in the report and then applies math to that.

Your issues seem to all stem around what is or is not in the credit report. 33% utilization vs less than 30% utilization (28.9% to be exact) for aggrigate scoring makes a pretty big difference. that 3-4% in utilization alone and getting below 29% would likely put your TU score at or above the others.

Your special circumstances would likely need to be explained in more detail to get help, and even then its probably an uphill battle anytime your working against the legal process. your scores will likely see a quicker boost by paying off another 4% on accounts reporting to TU than getting them to resolve your credit report (not that it wont happen, its just a slower process)

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

Remedios — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 19:08:01 GMT

@AzCreditGuy you scores are very low for a clean file.

You'd need to provide a bit more information, utilization in particular, if you're looking for reasons why not only TU but also the other two are below 700 if you truly have no negatives.

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:18:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@AzCreditGuy wrote:
This isn’t a bash Transunion thread but I need to understand the logic behind the scoring of Transunion. Personally, for me, ever since I have had a credit score, Transunion has always been the lowest of my scores. They have also been hard to deal with, if any disputes are needed.

They are the only credit bureau that has locked me out of the online dispute process, I was told my account is in special status, but to me its being flagged, due to CFPB and Legal letter being written to them in the past, to correct issues they refused to work on.
Transunion is also the only Bureau that doesn’t recognize 2 AU accounts, which came about from contacting CFPB and Legal letters to them, hence the special account “status”

For early April I have no baddies, 0 late payments on my accounts and new accounts have been opened within the last 10 months, here is the following
Transunion Score 676 , 2 inqs, 33% Ulti (complete), 7 CC and 1 personal loan with balances
Equifax Score 693, 2 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances
Experian Score 707, 5 inqs, 30% Ulti (complete) 7 CC, 2 AU and 1 personal loan with balances

May is going to be good month for me 3 personal CC paid down and Ulti even lower, I cant wait to see how the scoring is when they get updated by all 3
Your transunion credit SCORE is not the issue.

Your transunion credit REPORT is the issue.

the credit score is an automated algorithm. its just math and it does not discriminate or care about who where when or why. it only cares about what. what in the report and then applies math to that.

Your issues seem to all stem around what is or is not in the credit report. 33% utilization vs less than 30% utilization (28.9% to be exact) for aggrigate scoring makes a pretty big difference. that 3-4% in utilization alone and getting below 29% would likely put your TU score at or above the others.

Your special circumstances would likely need to be explained in more detail to get help, and even then its probably an uphill battle anytime your working against the legal process. your scores will likely see a quicker boost by paying off another 4% on accounts reporting to TU than getting them to resolve your credit report (not that it wont happen, its just a slower process)

@Anonymous

The figures that I gave are based on April 9th and with lag of updated information. Current Ulti for Trans is 24.67% and Experian/Equifax 26.56%. I do nt believe once the information is updated that Transunion will be higher, but I will wait and see what happens when its updated.

I have no special circumstances as the moment with Transunion, as it was more explain on my past credit disputes with Transunion. But I did get a denial for a CLI last week using Transunion information as stated by the bank and when I tried to dispute to see what was on my file, I was denied this access online at the transunion.com webiste that I am a member of. Thats more of less how Transunion has been with my "special" account

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:19:58 GMT

@Remedios wrote:
@AzCreditGuy you scores are very low for a clean file.
You'd need to provide a bit more information, utilization in particular, if you're looking for reasons why not only TU but also the other two are below 700 if you truly have no negatives.

@Remedios Ulti was provided above for all 3 and yes I have ZERO NEGS on my account

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

dragontears — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:22:24 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
@Remedios wrote:
@AzCreditGuy you scores are very low for a clean file.
You'd need to provide a bit more information, utilization in particular, if you're looking for reasons why not only TU but also the other two are below 700 if you truly have no negatives.

@Remedios Ulti was provided above for all 3 and yes I have ZERO NEGS on my account

That is very strange to have such a low score with no negative information on your reports.

Do you have an individual card that is maxed out or has high utilization?

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 21:08:27 GMT

@dragontears

Yes for April I have 2, Wells Fargo’s was at 61% but as of now is 56%, still high but unsure if that warrants that many pts down? And the other one is Barclays who created an artificial high utilization when they penalized me for a credit spree and deceased my CL from $5k to $2,350 creating a 87% . For April this was at 78% it now at 56%. When I am done paying down the Barclays 0% APR period, that card is going to get thrown in the sock drawer and never used again. Thought Indv Utli was 5 pts per grade?

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

Remedios — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 23:33:34 GMT

That's very high as far as utilization goes. You're probably losing 50+ there.

If you can get all your cards below 29%, you'd see some improvement.

Additionally, more cards you get below 9%, the better.

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

thornback — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 23:44:51 GMT

+1.

For example, in March I allowed a single card to, for one month, report 68% util and it cost me 24-26 points across the board (with overall util being at 7%).

So that was just one card -- I could assume having two cards with that high of util could easily double that point loss on my profile.

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 14:51:41 GMT

So I could be losing 50pts? But that would be across all 3 not just Transunion, Transunion still seems to be my lowest score by 21 to 31pts. If I got those 2 cards down below 29%, I should see pts increase on all 3, but would Transunion be closer to Experian and Equifax or just be off pts again? At the moment these 2 cards will be at high ULTI since they are still on 0% APR promos, Finances over Fico for now. I have a spreapsheet Ive put together and will keep an eye on these accounts when they are paid down below 29% to see the pts gained back.

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 16:17:36 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
So I could be losing 50pts? But that would be across all 3 not just Transunion, Transunion still seems to be my lowest score by 21 to 31pts. If I got those 2 cards down below 29%, I should see pts increase on all 3, but would Transunion be closer to Experian and Equifax or just be off pts again? At the moment these 2 cards will be at high ULTI since they are still on 0% APR promos, Finances over Fico for now. I have a spreapsheet Ive put together and will keep an eye on these accounts when they are paid down below 29% to see the pts gained back.

The FICO 8 scores for all 3 beareus is similar. again you are focusing too much on the differences in scores and not the differences in the reports. once balances update and the 3 credit reports show the same info (util percentages, inqueries, credit age, baddies etc...) the score will become very similar.

the good news is, its just math. the scores dont care about circumstances, they care about math. once your credit report for TU looks like it does for EF/EX then the math will even out and TU score will increase.

1% can mean a huge difference in scores if it makes you pass a threshold. for instance:

88.9% utilization is a huge threshold. if you went from 89.1% to 88.1% that would have a big impact on your score. 10-50 points potentially. but going from 59.1% to 58.1% does nothing for you.

thresholds are:

8.9% 28.9% 48.9% 68.9% 88.9%

passing below those thresholds will see more significant score increases. going above significant drops. if you give us a break down of:

your credit balance/credit limit on all cards we can help you a bit more with what to pay down first,

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

AzCreditGuy — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 22:01:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@AzCreditGuy wrote:
So I could be losing 50pts? But that would be across all 3 not just Transunion, Transunion still seems to be my lowest score by 21 to 31pts. If I got those 2 cards down below 29%, I should see pts increase on all 3, but would Transunion be closer to Experian and Equifax or just be off pts again? At the moment these 2 cards will be at high ULTI since they are still on 0% APR promos, Finances over Fico for now. I have a spreapsheet Ive put together and will keep an eye on these accounts when they are paid down below 29% to see the pts gained back.
The FICO 8 scores for all 3 beareus is similar. again you are focusing too much on the differences in scores and not the differences in the reports. once balances update and the 3 credit reports show the same info (util percentages, inqueries, credit age, baddies etc...) the score will become very similar.

the good news is, its just math. the scores dont care about circumstances, they care about math. once your credit report for TU looks like it does for EF/EX then the math will even out and TU score will increase.

1% can mean a huge difference in scores if it makes you pass a threshold. for instance:

88.9% utilization is a huge threshold. if you went from 89.1% to 88.1% that would have a big impact on your score. 10-50 points potentially. but going from 59.1% to 58.1% does nothing for you.

thresholds are:

8.9% 28.9% 48.9% 68.9% 88.9%

passing below those thresholds will see more significant score increases. going above significant drops. if you give us a break down of:

your credit balance/credit limit on all cards we can help you a bit more with what to pay down first,

Yes I am aware of those thresholds as of today Experian/Equifax is at 26.55% and Transunion will be at 24.67% when the credit reports are updated for total Ulti, the 8.9% will not be hit for a couple of months. Finances over Ficos for the moment

I am more concerned with Indivudal Ulti thresholds 28.9% 48.9% 68.9% 88.9% but I was under the impression these are 5pt hits not any larger

Here you can see each card Indv %
Me/Auth = 2 AU cards (Experian/Equifax)
Me = No 2 AU cards (Transunion)
Sofi = Personal Loan

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring?

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:24:56 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrot

Yes I am aware of those thresholds as of today Experian/Equifax is at 26.55% and Transunion will be at 24.67% when the credit reports are updated for total Ulti, the 8.9% will not be hit for a couple of months. Finances over Ficos for the moment

I am more concerned with Indivudal Ulti thresholds 28.9% 48.9% 68.9% 88.9% but I was under the impression these are 5pt hits not any larger

Here you can see each card Indv %
Me/Auth = 2 AU cards (Experian/Equifax)
Me = No 2 AU cards (Transunion)
Sofi = Personal Loan

You should be in much better shape once your new balances are reported. you have 5 cards passing the 28.9% threshold. and one passing the 88.9% threshold. I dont want to set any false hopes for what exactly you can expect but i think you will be happy with the bump you will see (assuming you dont raise those balances back above before reporting happens.)

5 points for an individual card passing a threshold isnt a concrete number. we dont know the exact algorithm. all thresholds arent created equally from data we have either at it seems that the 2 most important for individual cards is 28.9 and 88.9 and you've got 6 crossing those.

patience will server you well. i know from my own experience the axciety/anticipation and checking everyday for updates and how that sucks but just keep those balances where they are give it 45 days, make your payments when they are due and check back then im sure things will change in a significantly positive way as long as there are no other factors at play

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring? (Update)

AzCreditGuy — Thu, 07 May 2020 15:27:27 GMT

I recently opened a dispute with TU with the CFPB regarding access to Transunion.com, Ive had a profile since 2010 and was able to dispute misinformation on that site. Since my AU issues in the past and legal letters being sent to TU, they have put my account on special status and have blocked my access to view or dispute my credit report with TU on Transunion.com. Seems out of this dispute TU removed my current employeer from my credit report? Which was never in dispute nor did I request it? They have yet to respond to the CFPB on my open dispute..

Ok so I have an UPDATE on Experian only and I have to say I am very disappointed as I only obtained a 9 pt increase to my score which is now 716 from April score of 707.

Experian is showing 3 credit cards paid off to $0

Wells Fargos has not been updated for 2 months now

And Discover (really 24% not 31%) and Chase get payments towards the end the month

Sofi is a personal loan

But from 31% to 27% total UTLI netted me 9 pts? The groups thoughts were I was losing big pts from where I was at in April?

I am waiting to see what my TU score is because I expect that all with equal between them now, I expect that gap of 32 pts to be closer to Experian and Equifax

Re: Helped me understand Transunion scoring? (Update)

AzCreditGuy — Sat, 16 May 2020 17:22:03 GMT

As you can see I crossed a couple of thresholds Invd and Overall, It would seem that the AU accounts on Experian and Equifax are helping me with pts and why Transunion is not closer in pts to those accounts. If thats not the case, than I truly dont understand Transunion logic in score