topic Re: Understanding EX8 Reason: Short Account History in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Understanding EX8 Reason: Short Account History

jasonbourne84 — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 19:49:37 GMT

For new accounts, I'm currently reporting on all three CRAs as 0|0|5 for the last 6|12|24. Because that is about to jump to 4|4|9 and will obviously lower my AAoA, I thought I'd try to get some better understanding as to why I'm getting this negative reason code for EX8:

but nearly the same profile is displaying positive codes for EQ8 and TU8:

Perhaps it's as simple as EX has a higher bar on AoOA, but I'd appreciate any insight or thoughts. Thanks!

Re: Understanding EX8 Reason: Short Account History

CH-7-Mission-Accomplished — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 19:56:55 GMT

@jasonbourne84 wrote:
For new accounts, I'm currently reporting on all three CRAs as 0|0|5 for the last 6|12|24. Because that is about to jump to 4|4|9 and will obviously lower my AAoA, I thought I'd try to get some better understanding as to why I'm getting this negative reason code for EX8:

but nearly the same profile is displaying positive codes for EQ8 and TU8:

Perhaps it's as simple as EX has a higher bar on AoOA, but I'd appreciate any insight or thoughts. Thanks!

Of all of the FICO reason codes, this one will drive you craziest. My oldest account is 31 years old and AAofA is about 9 years old. Honestly, FICO has to give you its three top reasons for not giving you a higher/perfect score and when they get down to the bottom of the bucket, this one shows up. I have learned to live with it since one bureau using one score version will say you're great in that category and another bureau will say you suck. I'm pretty sure that the next reason code will be the fact that you stole a pack of cigarettes in the fifth grade and the next reason code will be that you put your gum under the desk in second grade. FICO gives completely opposite resaon codes like you don't have enough accounts reporting a positive balance and in the next line will say you have too many accounts (though all are perfect). I just give up because it's a futile battle.

Re: Understanding EX8 Reason: Short Account History

jasonbourne84 — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 02:08:26 GMT

Yeah - it's positively whacky. I unfortunately don't have a ton of old 3B reports (lost access to them when I changed subscription status/payment method), but in reviewing the reason code history from what I do have, it's even stranger. For example, here is what it said on July 21, 2020:

I somehow went from "Established credit history" to "Short credit history" on EX - yet, all of the obvious age metrics are better. Here are some more:

Some other DPs - In Jul 2020, I didn't have a mortgage and my open SL consolidation loan wasn't showing up on my reports for some reason. I got a mortgage in Sep 2020 and the SL consolidation loan was restored to my reports (with an opening date of Jan 2016).

Maybe its due to a scoring card change?

Maybe it's actually referring to open accounts?

In any event, super interesting.

Re: Understanding EX8 Reason: Short Account History

jasonbourne84 — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 04:56:17 GMT

UPDATE / POSSIBLE EXPLANATION?

After my last post, I remembered that my Experian account has a treasure trove of data that is still accessible. Using that, I isolated the month (and week) that the reason code switched over - Oct 2020. That would've been 24-months from my most recent delinquency.

After revisiting @Anonymous's writeup on scorecards, I'm thinking this was the result of changing scorecards, from DIRTY/NO PR/RECENT to DIRTY/NO PR/MATURE.

It seems counterintuitive, but perhaps the EX thresholds for AAoA and AoOA are just higher on the DIRTY/NO PR/MATURE card, and this reason code is signaling that there are now more age-related points to be had (whereas there were no further age-related points to be had on the DIRTY/NO PR/RECENT scorecard).