topic Loss 9 Points Yesterday in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Iusedtolurk — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 17:23:07 GMT

Yesterday checking my Ex I saw I had lost 9 points and I guess the major change was going from 10/12 accounts reporting balances to 12/12. (Had changed due dates of 2 cap1 cards and didn't expect them to report just yet).

My thinking is if the 10/12 going to 12/12 caused the drop then last month when I went from 12/12 to 10/12 (JAN 14-15) I should have gained some points and that didn't happen. (score stayed the same for the rest of the month until I went from 716 to 706 on Feb 1 after hitting 3 years AoOA.)

Also I believe I have read an earlier post from @Anonymous that may have suggested a revolving balance threshold of +/- 5000 dollars may cause some movement in scores but as I have went slightly above and below this metric lately no movement of scores occured +/-.

Changes shown in pic:

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 18:24:37 GMT

Sounds like you've got a bunch of variables at play that may be conflicting with one another. You are correct that if moving from 10 accounts with a balance to 12 caused a score drop of X, moving from 12 accounts with a balance to 10 would cause a score gain of X. The fact that these two pieces of data doing align (X isn't the same) proves that there was another score-impacting factor at play at least one of those times.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 20:52:09 GMT

@Iusedtolurk wrote:
Yesterday checking my Ex I saw I had lost 9 points and I guess the major change was going from 10/12 accounts reporting balances to 12/12. (Had changed due dates of 2 cap1 cards and didn't expect them to report just yet).

My thinking is if the 10/12 going to 12/12 caused the drop then last month when I went from 12/12 to 10/12 (JAN 14-15) I should have gained some points and that didn't happen. (score stayed the same for the rest of the month until I went from 716 to 706 on Feb 1 after hitting 3 years AoOA.)

Also I believe I have read an earlier post from @Anonymous that may have suggested a revolving balance threshold of +/- 5000 dollars may cause some movement in scores but as I have went slightly above and below this metric lately no movement of scores occured +/-.

Changes shown in pic:

@Iusedtolurk you can't compare the number of accounts with a balance thresholds from two different scorecards and expect the same results necessarily.

So it appears there could be a balance threshold between $4604-4898? Maybe. But that could've been caused by the number of accounts with a balance metric where it did not on the other scorecard.

We think there's one somewhere around $5000. It's not at $5000, but we're trying to find it. maybe what you just narrowed it down if that's a balance threshold.

bottom line the only way to know for sure is to repeat the action/reverse it and see if you get the same results, to determine which one it is, imho.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Iusedtolurk — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 21:17:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Iusedtolurk wrote:
Yesterday checking my Ex I saw I had lost 9 points and I guess the major change was going from 10/12 accounts reporting balances to 12/12. (Had changed due dates of 2 cap1 cards and didn't expect them to report just yet).

My thinking is if the 10/12 going to 12/12 caused the drop then last month when I went from 12/12 to 10/12 (JAN 14-15) I should have gained some points and that didn't happen. (score stayed the same for the rest of the month until I went from 716 to 706 on Feb 1 after hitting 3 years AoOA.)

Also I believe I have read an earlier post from @Anonymous that may have suggested a revolving balance threshold of +/- 5000 dollars may cause some movement in scores but as I have went slightly above and below this metric lately no movement of scores occured +/-.

Changes shown in pic:
@Iusedtolurk you can't compare the number of accounts with a balance thresholds from two different scorecards and expect the same results necessarily.

So it appears there could be a balance threshold between $4604-4898? Maybe. But that could've been caused by the number of accounts with a balance metric where it did not on the other scorecard.

We think there's one somewhere around $5000. It's not at $5000, but we're trying to find it. maybe what you just narrowed it down if that's a balance threshold.

bottom line the only way to know for sure is to repeat the action/reverse it and see if you get the same results, to determine which one it is, imho.

It definitely makes sense that something is different as @Anonymous has stated and I didn't even consider that as you stated @Anonymous that it is 2 different scorecards existing between the data points and that may be the variable causing the differences between the points and perhaps the 5000 +/- threshold impact.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Curious_George2 — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 21:36:04 GMT

Thanks for the DP, OP.

@Anonymous: I didn't know you had come to the belief that the balance threshold isn't exactly at $5,000. Is that based solely on this DP, or do you have others?

This issue is timely for me because I am in the final stages of setting up a test of it (and whether Amex charge cards are included or not).

From your perspective, what would be the most useful balance numbers to test in the $5k neighborhood? (scorecard = clean, mature, thick, with new account)

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 01:34:53 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
Thanks for the DP, OP.

@Anonymous: I didn't know you had come to the belief that the balance threshold isn't exactly at $5,000. Is that based solely on this DP, or do you have others?

This issue is timely for me because I am in the final stages of setting up a test of it (and whether Amex charge cards are included or not).

From your perspective, what would be the most useful balance numbers to test in the $5k neighborhood? (scorecard = clean, mature, thick, with new account)

@Curious_George2 no I have never said it was at $5000, I do not believe. We have a belief that there is one around $5000. Based on the above, it may be below $5000, but I'll go check the Primer and see if I can find the previous reference that narrowed it around that range. Because there was a prior data point that put one somewhere in that range.

I'm sorry for any confusion if any of my statements weren't clear enough. This is the leading edge of our research right now, I think, we're starting to learn about it but we know very little.

@Anonymous do you happen to recall the thread where was a data point somewhere around $5000?

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 01:36:29 GMT

@Iusedtolurk yes and I feel that the number of accounts with a balance Metric would probably be the One more likely to be different between scorecards but I really don't have anything to base that belief on, it's just conjecture.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Curious_George2 — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 02:13:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Curious_George2 wrote:
Thanks for the DP, OP.

@Anonymous: I didn't know you had come to the belief that the balance threshold isn't exactly at $5,000. Is that based solely on this DP, or do you have others?

This issue is timely for me because I am in the final stages of setting up a test of it (and whether Amex charge cards are included or not).

From your perspective, what would be the most useful balance numbers to test in the $5k neighborhood? (scorecard = clean, mature, thick, with new account)
@Curious_George2 no I have never said it was at $5000, I do not believe. We have a belief that there is one around $5000. Based on the above, it may be below $5000, but I'll go check the Primer and see if I can find the previous reference that narrowed it around that range. Because there was a prior data point that put one somewhere in that range.

I'm sorry for any confusion if any of my statements weren't clear enough. This is the leading edge of our research right now, I think, we're starting to learn about it but we know very little.

@Anonymous do you happen to recall the thread where was a data point somewhere around $5000?

Cool. Sorry if my post came across as critical or accusatory. That's not at all how I intended it. I reflexively guessed that a threshold would most likely have been placed at a round number, so I was going to test $4,999 and $5,001. Just didn't know you had already learned it's not there. I do recall a thread with some indication of a threshold in the four thousands. But my memory is it wasn't the cleanest of DPs. I'll try to find it. Was it like 2-3 months ago?

I only have a couple chances to probe for this because the interest-free periods on my carried balances are about to expire. (Finances > FICO testing. Sorry. ) So I'd like test where it makes the most sense. Thanks for all your great work!

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 03:03:43 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous do you happen to recall the thread where was a data point somewhere around $5000?

I thought it was yours. lol

"10th account reports a balance taking aggregate revolving balances over $5000, and I lose 12 more points." (Forum link)

Also, I brought it up some time ago when I was questioning why FICO asks about these balance thresholds as part of the FICO Score Estimator:

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 04:18:58 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Curious_George2 wrote:
Thanks for the DP, OP.

@Anonymous: I didn't know you had come to the belief that the balance threshold isn't exactly at $5,000. Is that based solely on this DP, or do you have others?

This issue is timely for me because I am in the final stages of setting up a test of it (and whether Amex charge cards are included or not).

From your perspective, what would be the most useful balance numbers to test in the $5k neighborhood? (scorecard = clean, mature, thick, with new account)
@Curious_George2 no I have never said it was at $5000, I do not believe. We have a belief that there is one around $5000. Based on the above, it may be below $5000, but I'll go check the Primer and see if I can find the previous reference that narrowed it around that range. Because there was a prior data point that put one somewhere in that range.

I'm sorry for any confusion if any of my statements weren't clear enough. This is the leading edge of our research right now, I think, we're starting to learn about it but we know very little.

@Anonymous do you happen to recall the thread where was a data point somewhere around $5000?
Cool. Sorry if my post came across as critical or accusatory. That's not at all how I intended it. I reflexively guessed that a threshold would most likely have been placed at a round number, so I was going to test $4,999 and $5,001. Just didn't know you had already learned it's not there. I do recall a thread with some indication of a threshold in the four thousands. But my memory is it wasn't the cleanest of DPs. I'll try to find it. Was it like 2-3 months ago?

I only have a couple chances to probe for this because the interest-free periods on my carried balances are about to expire. (Finances > FICO testing. Sorry. ) So I'd like test where it makes the most sense. Thanks for all your great work!

@Curious_George2 No you're totally cool I was just worried you went to a bunch of trouble based on a misunderstanding. And it looks like Cassie may have found the thread where I crossed the threshold and got points, that's right I did! let me go read the thread and see if I can narrow it down, but there was someone else that had a possible change somewhere around there too, IIRC, let me go read this one.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:17:28 GMT

Thank you @Anonymous ! @Curious_George2 yes the range was somewhere between $3700-$6575. So that's a $3000 field to narrow down and that was on TransUnion.

@Curious_George2 I can further narrow give me a few minutes but for the time being, $4385-$6575, i'm narrowing it.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:06:53 GMT

There is $147 threshold on one of the versions as well I think it was EX2.

I also need to go to catch up my score changes since then and see if I can get any further insight.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:28:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
There is $147 threshold on one of the versions as well I think it was EX2.

I also need to go to catch up my score changes since then and see if I can get any further insight.

@Anonymous: This post for the $147 threshold.

And this post for some more thresholds across several scoring models.

Both posts by HeavenOhio.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:52:09 GMT

On TU8 it's somewhere between $4385 - $5353, I do believe based on my reason code resolution. @Curious_George2 sorry I just went through all my codes this one is correct I believe should be in between there.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 05:43:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous do you happen to recall the thread where was a data point somewhere around $5000?
I thought it was yours. lol

"10th account reports a balance taking aggregate revolving balances over $5000, and I lose 12 more points." (Forum link)

Also, I brought it up some time ago when I was questioning why FICO asks about these balance thresholds as part of the FICO Score Estimator:

This is another thing to be aware of, there is a Metric for total amount owed and it may exclude mortgages based on the language in the screenshot above or maybe that's another metric.

So keep in mind not only is there revolver balance thresholds, but there are also total amount owed dollar thresholds.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Curious_George2 — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 06:01:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
On TU8 it's somewhere between $4385 - $5353, I do believe based on my reason code resolution. @Curious_George2 sorry I just went through all my codes this one is correct I believe should be in between there.

That's a bit easier to work with than a $3k range.

I wasn't totally tracking your posts in the TU8 thread. Seems like maybe your number of accounts with balances varied a bit, along with $. Not saying I don't believe you, but are you confident you adequately controlled for accounts with balances?

I just read the posts/threads Cassie linked to, re HeavenOhio's testing of this. Interesting stuff. It kind of blows my mind that there's a threshold at freaking $147. (Why FICO, why?!)

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 06:26:54 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
On TU8 it's somewhere between $4385 - $5353, I do believe based on my reason code resolution. @Curious_George2 sorry I just went through all my codes this one is correct I believe should be in between there.
That's a bit easier to work with than a $3k range.

I wasn't totally tracking your posts in the TU8 thread. Seems like maybe your number of accounts with balances varied a bit, along with $. Not saying I don't believe you, but are you confident you adequately controlled for accounts with balances?

I just read the posts/threads Cassie linked to, re HeavenOhio's testing of this. Interesting stuff. It kind of blows my mind that there's a threshold at freaking $147. (Why FICO, why?!)

@Curious_George2 yes isn't that crazy? And yes believe it or not I'm pretty confident of that. The fortunate thing is the alert section in MF gives you a total amount with the alert rather than telling you the individual Revolvers before and after amount. That's one of the idiosyncrasies of TransUnion alerts.

So I mean actually I could go get the screenshots for you if I really really had to and like I said I went down to 3 reason codes and revolving Balances disappeared at the lower number I gave you, so that means the first threshold for version 8 has to be above $4385 because I didn't have it there, but I did have it at the second number $5353?

so this is not just the code being pushed off, I went down to three codes, so it was gone! 😁 so I'm pretty confident this is not a goose chase here! 😉 I did have to double check my numbers first, my OCD made me do it!

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 07:41:11 GMT

One of the places that the ~$5000 number came about was when discussing SJs profile and all 1% utilization shifts resulting in score changes. On his file a 1% utilization shift equates to something in the vacinity of $5000 since he's got very high TCL. When talking it out, BM and I were of the opinion that it was the raw dollars resulting in his score changes rather than 1% utilization "thresholds" at every single integer of utilization since that's not something we've heard reported by others. The overall conclusion was then that there may be a dollars-related threshold [at least] every ~$5000.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 18:26:46 GMT

Yeah we knew it had to be somewhere around there, we just got to narrow it down and I think we’re making progress. I’ve had so much on my mind lately, I forgot I was the one that has the data points around it! Lol. Got it narrowed down to $1000 range pretty much though so that’s pretty good. And considering the code disappeared and wasn’t just pushed off, I think that’s kind of explicit.

Re: Loss 9 Points Yesterday

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 20:39:53 GMT

This is crazy I just got another alert from TransUnion showing I’m now at $5504, but no accompanying score change alert and reason codes. But previously I had the reason code at a lower dollar amount.

My conclusion is maybe I will have some more alerts come in retroactively as they do at times? we will have to wait and see. my alternate hypothesis is, we all know version 8 reason codes are screwy at times. I wish they were as consistent as the mortgage Score Reason Codes.

By the way I did insert screenshots in the other thread showing the reason code at the lower dollar amount and the lack of it at the higher dollar amount.