topic Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years??? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

AAoRA threshold at 9 years???(Updated)

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 05:14:14 GMT

(Update: I don't really believe anymore that 9 years is a threshold for AAoRA, see Update )

From 5/22 to 5/24 my DW's Ex Fico 8 changed from 807 to 800. After hours of analysing her (and mine) credit reports I believe that the drop in score was caused by her AAoRA changing from above 9 years to below 9 years.

Here are some of the gritty details: For the last three months I have been monitoring our Ex fico scores on an (almost) daily basis. I have been able to explain most scores changes, but I was drawing a blank for the Fico 8 change from 5/22 to 5/24 (sorry, 5/23 is one of the few days I did not pull our scores).

Me and my DW's are authorized users on almost all of each others card and so our reports are almost identical. Both of our scorecards on 5/24 were clean/old/thick/new. (But if I ignore my AU accounts, my scorecard was clean/old/thick/not new on 5/22)

Both of us have no open installment loans. I have one closed installment loan, DW has none. Correction: I actually have two closed installment loans, a closed car loan and a closed home equity loan).

There were two changes from 5/22 to 5/24:

1) A new credit card appeared on our reports (I'm the owner, DW is AU). The utilization of the new card on 5/24 was 2.56%

2) The utilization of one credit card (I'm AU, DW is owner) did raise from 12.95% to 15.05%.

My Ex F8 increased from 788 to 789. DW's dropped from 807 to 800.

From watching the scores for the last three months, I do know that our Ex F8 scores do not react to the number of accounts with balance (we went from over 60% down to 20% and back to 60% of accounts with balance without ever causing a change in Ex F8. (Although Ex F8B changed whenever 25% or 50% were crossed)

I am 99% certain DW's score dropped was not caused by a change in aggregate util, since very similar changes at other times have not caused a change in Ex F8.

For both of us counting AU accounts: AoYA=AoYRA and AoYA changed from 7 to 1 month.

Not counting AU accounts, my AoYRA changed from 32 to 1 month and DW's stayed at 7 months. So there is a possibility that I changed scorecards from 5/22 to 5/24, but that seems unlikely since my Ex F8 only changed by 1 point.

My AAoA changed from 109.4 to 106.3 months, DW's from 110.4 to 107.0

My AAoRA changed from 114.1 to 110.7 months, DW's from 110.4 to 107.0

So in three cases, a possible 9 year (=108 months) threshold was crossed. But since my score did raise rather than drop, it seems to me that the drop in my DW's Ex F8 was caused by her AAoRA changing from above 9 years to below 9 years.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 02:41:02 GMT

PS: I'm sure @Anonymous will ask me, whether I did the AZ-test to determine whether the AU-accounts count. No, I have not. I'm carrying $45000 of 0% balance on our credit card accounts which I'm not willing to payoff. But currently it seems to me that the AU-accounts are excluded in some calculations, but included in others.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 05:17:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
PS: I'm sure @Anonymous will ask me, whether I did the AZ-test to determine whether the AU-accounts count. No, I have not. I'm carrying $45000 of 0% balance on our credit card accounts which I'm not willing to payoff. But currently it seems to me that the AU-accounts are excluded in some calculations, but included in others.

@AnonymousNo, I believe the AU accounts are counting. I'll post in a minute when I remember why, LOL. DW's profile is more sensitive due to lack of a loan; mix. Nope, not aggregate utilization either, per se, tho involved. Oh, the reason you see AU util counting someplace and not counting in the other is because Experian offers 2 places to view util, one is with, and the other is without.

Let me take a guess here and you tell me if I'm right. The new card's CL caused your Ag. util to increase TCL and cross a threshold didn't it?

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 05:57:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
PS: I'm sure @Anonymous will ask me, whether I did the AZ-test to determine whether the AU-accounts count. No, I have not. I'm carrying $45000 of 0% balance on our credit card accounts which I'm not willing to payoff. But currently it seems to me that the AU-accounts are excluded in some calculations, but included in others.
@AnonymousNo, I believe the AU accounts are counting. I'll post in a minute when I remember why, LOL. DW's profile is more sensitive due to lack of a loan; mix. Nope, not aggregate utilization either, per se, tho involved. Yep, you both switched cards to a new account card from a no new account card; not a possibility. Oh, the reason you see AU util counting someplace and not counting in the other is because Experiian offers 2 places to view util, one is with, and the other is without.

Sorry, I do not pay any attention to the util calculation of Experian. Anybody who rounds 9.2% Util to 9% has lost my respect.

Let me take a guess here and you tell me if I'm right. The new card's CL caused your Ag. util to cross a threshold didn't it?

I really don't think so. I compute the Ag util before and after in four ways. With AU cards and without. With my Heloc and without. No threshold was crossed, except if AU cards are exluded and the Heloc is included then the Ag Util changed from 4.87 to 4.96. So the 5% threshold for "new" scorecards was crossed. But from 6/1 to 6/2 it changed from 4.96 to 4.89 and her Ex Fico score did not change. No after numbers other than util changed on that . So if 5% is a threshold she should have gained points.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 05:21:55 GMT

Oh now I remember. If your AU accounts were not counting, then you would’ve experienced scorecard reassignment to a new account scorecard and lost 10 or 15 points.

Since you did not, that tells me the authorised user accounts are in fact counting. Again I believe the difference is because she has no instalment loan open or closed on her record and she is therefore more sensitive and therefore another new account had the different effect on her profile.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 07:25:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Let me take a guess here and you tell me if I'm right. The new card's CL caused your Ag. util to increase TCL and cross a threshold didn't it?

I'm not sure what the bolded part is saying. Also I just realized that you were asking about my Ag Util and not DW's. The four changes (with/without AU/Heloc ) of my Ag Util were 8.17 to 8.15, 9.80 to 9.75, 8.13 to 8.03, 10.69 to 10.52. So no Thresholds passed here.

Total Credit Limit even without ACs and Heloc is above $200,000 and the CL of the new card was only $7,000. No multiple of $50,000 was crosssed. So I doubt TCL has anything to do with it.

(Edit: I fixed a typo. The CL of the new card is $7,000, not $70000).

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 07:23:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Oh now I remember. If your AU accounts were not counting, then you would’ve experienced scorecard reassignment to a new account scorecard and lost 10 or 15 points.

Since you did not, that tells me the authorised user accounts are in fact counting. Again I believe the difference is because she has no instalment loan open or closed on her record and she is therefore more sensitive and therefore another new account had the different effect on her profile.

It's to late for me to analyze this. Also in a couple of days I might cross the 9% Ag Util threshold counting my AU cards, but staying above 9% not counting the AU's. So I might wait until then to respond.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

dragontears — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 17:16:15 GMT

Just wanted to point out if she has no loans on her report it is impossible to say it is AAoRA and not AAOA......

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Tonya-E — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 20:57:36 GMT

There has to be something to this. My 850 score is with TU. It is the only one of the bureaus showing my AAOA at 9 years & 2 months. EQ & EX are a few months short. I did a simulator and it shows both EX & EQ being at 850 by Nov. which should put me at the 9 yr. mark for those. That is just with aging the accounts - nothing else. I literally just noticed this today when I was reviewing my reports. EQ and TU are nearly identical but there is 1 account discrepancy. I did a spreadsheet to take a look. EQ sits at 8 years 11 months. EX sits at 8 years 9 months.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 21:35:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Let me take a guess here and you tell me if I'm right. The new card's CL caused your Ag. util to increase TCL and cross a threshold didn't it?
I'm not sure what the bolded part is saying. Also I just realized that you were asking about my Ag Util and not DW's. The four changes (with/without AU/Heloc ) of my Ag Util were 8.17 to 8.15, 9.80 to 9.75, 8.13 to 8.03, 10.69 to 10.52. So no Thresholds passed here.

Total Credit Limit even without ACs and Heloc is above $200,000 and the CL of the new card was only $7,000. No multiple of $50,000 was crosssed. So I doubt TCL has anything to do with it.

(Edit: I fixed a typo. The CL of the new card is $7,000, not $70000).

@Anonymous Based on the above, I think you are absolutely correct in your initial analysis!

It is still true that her profile is more sensitive having no loans, but I think you're absolutely correct and I thank you for bringing this to my attention!

@dragontears Is correct that AAoA=AAoRA will be the same for she her with no loan on record but the metric that I believe gave points is AAoRA, and @Tonya-E 's DPs (thank you too!) seem to confirm it! Also, AAoA is believed to max out at 7 years 8 months, so I doubt that that is a factor.

This is exactly what we need so we can start finding these thresholds I'm so glad that you posted!

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 21:40:21 GMT

@Anonymous By the way I apologise I got off-line last night and didn’t see your response til now.

Thank you very much this is about to be linked in the Primer! Great work, great find, great analysis!

And what I meant before was if it increased your credit limit to such a point that it caused your utilisation to drop below a threshold.

I'm pretty certain you're authorised user accounts are counting, so I don't think you have to do those extra calculations anymore, but as for the HELOC, I don't think it's counted in utilisation in score 8, but I'm not sure. I will investigate that even though I think there's some conflicting information.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 23:01:48 GMT

@dragontears wrote:
Just wanted to point out if she has no loans on her report it is impossible to say it is AAoRA and not AAOA......

If 9% is a threshold for AAoA, also my Ex F8 should have dropped (see my first post).

Also AAoA has been studied extensively, and so I would think that a 9% threshold for AAoA would already be known.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 23:03:29 GMT

@Tonya-E wrote:
There has to be something to this. My 850 score is with TU. It is the only one of the bureaus showing my AAOA at 9 years & 2 months. EQ & EX are a few months short. I did a simulator and it shows both EX & EQ being at 850 by Nov. which should put me at the 9 yr. mark for those. That is just with aging the accounts - nothing else. I literally just noticed this today when I was reviewing my reports. EQ and TU are nearly identical but there is 1 account discrepancy. I did a spreadsheet to take a look. EQ sits at 8 years 11 months. EX sits at 8 years 9 months

Lets us know what happens when you cross 9 years. What is your AAoRA?

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:40:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I'm pretty certain you're authorised user accounts are counting, so I don't think you have to do those extra calculations anymore, but as for the HELOC, I don't think it's counted in utilisation in score 8, but I'm not sure. I will investigate that even though I think there's some conflicting information.

I wrote a spreadsheet which does all those calculations for me.

I'm also think that the authorized are not ignored, but the Heloc is. If my Ex F8 goes up in the next couple of days, I will have proof for both.

But I want to be 100% sure that the AU's are not ignored. Sometime later I will start a new thread giving very strong evidence that Ex F8B (the bankcard version) DOES ignore the AU's when computing the percentage of accounts with balance. If my AU's would be ignored in general, that wouldn't be so surprising.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 23:58:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

I'm pretty certain you're authorised user accounts are counting, so I don't think you have to do those extra calculations anymore, but as for the HELOC, I don't think it's counted in utilisation in score 8, but I'm not sure. I will investigate that even though I think there's some conflicting information.
I wrote a spreadsheet which does all those calculations for me.

I'm also think that the authorized are not ignored, but the Heloc is. If my Ex F8 goes up in the next couple of days, I will have prove for both.

But I want to be 100% sure that the AU's are not ignored. Sometime later I will start a new thread giving very strong evidence that Ex F8B (the bankcard version) DOES ignore the AU's when computing the percentage of accounts with balance. If my AU's would be ignored in general, that wouldn't be so surprising.

@Anonymous I figured you had a spreadsheet, but I'm telling you they are not counting because if they were not, you would've experienced scorecard reassignment for the new revolver and lost 10 to 20 points, which you did not. That's pretty conclusive and explicit. Now, you know I'm sure they still count on the mortgage scores though full monty.

I'll page @AimHigh , I'm pretty certain he can resolve the HELOC uncertainty.

That is very interesting about BC8. Please page me when you do that thread, I look forward to reading it!

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 00:41:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

but I'm telling you they are not counting because if they were not, you would've experienced scorecard reassignment for the new revolver and lost 10 to 20 points, which you did not. That's pretty conclusive and explicit.

With all due respect, I do not except anybody's claims as the absolute truth without checking out all the evidence for those claims first. At first glance and assuming that the AUs count, me and my DW both changed scorecards from not-New to New on 11/6/19. My Ex F8 did raise 12 points on the day, and my DW's did not change. But I did not have time yet to evaluate that else happened on that day. According to your primer the 10 to 20 points loss is only an estimate. Predicting precisely what happens after a scorecard reassignment without a detailed analysis of the whole CR seems impossible to me. So please excuse me, if I do not except your statement as 100% proof that the AU's are not ignored.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 07:32:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

but I'm telling you they are not counting because if they were not, you would've experienced scorecard reassignment for the new revolver and lost 10 to 20 points, which you did not. That's pretty conclusive and explicit.

With all due respect, I do not except anybody's claims as the truth without checking out all the evidence for those claims first. At first glance and assuming that the AUs count, me and my DW both changed scorecards from not-New to New on 11/6/19. My Ex F8 did raise 12 points on the day, and my DW's did not change. But I did not have time yet to evaluate that else happened on that day. According to your primer the 10 to 20 points loss is only an estimate. Predicting precisely what happens after a scorecard reassignment without a detailed analysis of the whole CR seems impossible to me. So please excuse me, if I do not except your statement as 100% proof that the AU's are not ignored.

@Anonymous I totally understand and you're a man after my own heart, I feel the same way! Good on you for wanting to ensure your information is correct. (But, I would note the authorised user test that you have to use to determine whether they are counting would also be relying on my word, unless you go through a whole lot to verify the test as well. 😉)

But, if you didn't have a revolver under 12 months of age, then when one reported you would've lost, yes 10 to 20 points, and we cannot give precise estimates because its scorecard dependent. Thin/young files are higher risk and the penalties are higher, etc...

You are correct that when scorecard reassignment occurs it re-evaluates the entire file and the results can be unpredictable. A detailed analysis of the profile in question is almost always required. However, there are a couple reassignments we are pretty certain in predicting the direction on Score 8:

If you get your first derogatory on a clean file, you're gonna be re-assigned to a dirty scorecard, and I can't imagine a case where the score would not decrease.

When a new revolver reports to a clean file and you don't have a revolver younger than 12 months of age, you're gonna have a score decrease. (The obverse is also true, when your youngest hits 12 months of age. The caveat to this is if it is one of your first 3 revolvers, there could be an exception.)

Obviously, if there are any additional changes, that could interfere and all bets are off. But in the absence of any other changes, those are the established effects.

E.g., we know where the line is between young and aged, but you can't bet on which way the score goes because it depends on the profile. It's not a situation where there's always a move in a certain direction and it does require a detailed analysis, as you stated.

Is November 6, 2019 when the card reported to your credit reports? May I ask how many revolvers that made for you at that time? Because assuming you both had more than 3 revolvers, there should have been a decrease unless other factors are at play, as you alluded may be possible.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 08:29:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

I'm pretty certain you're authorised user accounts are counting, so I don't think you have to do those extra calculations anymore, but as for the HELOC, I don't think it's counted in utilisation in score 8, but I'm not sure. I will investigate that even though I think there's some conflicting information.

Well, I just pulled my Ex CR: Two changes from the previous day:

One credit cards util decreased from 22.25% to 21.71%
One credit cards util decreased from 36.37% to 35.93%

The Ag Util, counting the AU's and not counting the HELOC, decreased from 9.06% to 8.98%.

But Ex F8 did not change. Infact none of the Ex Ficos changed.

I'm sure that @Anonymous will tell me that this means that the HELOC is not excluded from my Ex F8 Ag Util, but I'm not sure anymore what to believe.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Tonya-E — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 09:24:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Tonya-E wrote:
There has to be something to this. My 850 score is with TU. It is the only one of the bureaus showing my AAOA at 9 years & 2 months. EQ & EX are a few months short. I did a simulator and it shows both EX & EQ being at 850 by Nov. which should put me at the 9 yr. mark for those. That is just with aging the accounts - nothing else. I literally just noticed this today when I was reviewing my reports. EQ and TU are nearly identical but there is 1 account discrepancy. I did a spreadsheet to take a look. EQ sits at 8 years 11 months. EX sits at 8 years 9 months
Lets us know what happens when you cross 9 years. What is your AAoRA?

@Anonymous @I definitely will. My most recent account will hit 1 year in December. So whatever happens should happen by Nov. If not, other factors could be at play.

Re: AAoRA threshold at 9 years???

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 05:07:56 GMT

I'm now having some serious doubt that 9Y is a threshold for AAoRA. I discovered a wrong entry in my spread sheet (the openig date of one of the credit cards was off by two years). This changed the AAoRA by only 0.8 months and actually everything I said in my first post is still correct with the new numbers. But with the new numbers my DW's crossed the 9Y mark two more times and at those times her Ex F8 did not change.

Trying to rescue the situation, I looked at the numbers with the HELOC included in the AAoRA calculation. Now my DW crossed 9Y only one time, namely on 5/24. But with the HELOC inluded, I cross the 9Y mark once and without a change in my Ex F8.

Not quite willing to give up yet, I remembered that the DCU Visa card (and some other credit union cards) are sometimes ignored by Fico scoring. So I looked at the numbers one more time, namely with the HELOC included and the DCU Visa excluded. Now my DW's crosses 9Y only on 5/24 and I never cross 9Y. So I cannot complete rule out a 9Y AAoRA threshold, but the evidence for it now looks rather weak.

So @Anonymous if you inserted a link to this thread in your primer, you should remove it.

My DW's will cross 9Y again on Nov 1st. I doubt her Ex F8 will change, but I'll let you know.