topic Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5 in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 15:31:12 GMT

My Experian FICO score went up 5 points today. I was quite surprised since nothing good has been happening with my profile.

I scoured the EX report and the only thing I can find is that one of my inquiries is dated 2/6/23. So if that became unscorable today, 2/6/24, my scorable EX inquiries dropped from 7 to 6.

Not sure what conclusions to draw, but thought I'd pass along the data.

Update 2/7/24. Although by my count, the number of scorable inquiries dropped from 7 to 6, experian.com is saying on its user interface, under "what's changed", that the number of recent inquiries dropped from 6 to 5. So I guess the next bin tops out at 5 not 6:

"On your previous report you had 6 recent inquiries—now you have 5, probably because an inquiry hit the 1 year mark. This means the inquiry no longer affects your FICO® Score, even though it will stay on your credit report for 2 years.

Keep in mind, we're only showing what FICO considers to be new inquiries and your credit report might show a different number. For example, FICO may group multiple inquiries for a new loan into one inquiry so you aren't penalized for shopping for a better rate."

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

Thomas_Thumb — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:27:22 GMT

Impact of an inquiry is nominally 5 points if you change bins. Your data point supports this.

My understanding of inquiry bins is: 0, 1, 2-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10+. Not sure if all the bins are correct.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:29:40 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
Impact of an inquiry is nominally 5 points if you change bins. Your data point supports this.

My understanding of inquiry bins is: 0, 1, 2-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10+. Not sure if all the bins are correct.

Well this would certainly fit within your understanding, going from the 7-9 bin down to the 4-6 bin.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

Thomas_Thumb — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:40:01 GMT

It just seems that a total of 25 points associated with inquiries is a bit much. Perhaps you can garden for a year and monitor impact of additional inquiries falling off EX to help confirm bins 😆

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 22:42:47 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
It just seems that a total of 25 points associated with inquiries is a bit much. Perhaps you can garden for a year and monitor impact of additional inquiries falling off EX to help confirm bins 😆

I may have to garden for a year, since at present I'm not exactly a prime candidate for anything worth having.

But actually, I only need to garden for about 6 months, because in August the last of my current scorable inquiries will be dropping off.

Now, under your hypothesis, when I get down to 3 scorable, which should happen in June, I may well pick up another 5 points.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 15:31:54 GMT

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

Thomas_Thumb — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 18:11:06 GMT

Ok - bin revision:

0, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-9 and 10+

It can be tricky knowing whether some inquiries are deduped to count as one. I am on the fence as to deduping of inquiries associated with seeking revolving credit. Possibly yes although most statements from Fico only mention deduping of installment loans. I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.

As we know, Fico 8 uses a 45 day dedupe.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

Slabenstein — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 18:14:49 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.

At both of the institutions where I've worked, when a credit report is pulled nothing is sent to the credit bureau that distinguishes it as an inquiry for an app for a revolving product or an inquiry for an app for an installment product, so for at least some inquiries this wouldn't be true.

Nevermind, I get the sense of what you're saying now. None of the undistinguished inquiries I was talking about would be deduped anyway, since they don't fall into a deduped category like, e.g., inquiries specifically coded as auto.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 03:28:42 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
Ok - bin revision:
0, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-9 and 10+

It can be tricky knowing whether some inquiries are deduped to count as one. I am on the fence as to deduping of inquiries associated with seeking revolving credit. Possibly yes although most statements from Fico only mention deduping of installment loans. I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.

As we know, Fico 8 uses a 45 day dedupe.

There have been times when I applied for revolving credit from a credit union, but I received an alert that an installment loan inquiry had been made. Perhaps some institutions, when they make the inquiry, label it as an installment loan inquiry. And the credit bureau, not knowing what it's really for, puts it in as such.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 23:15:18 GMT

Yes, credit unions can muck things up. Even some CU card accounts may not show as revolving.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

CorpCrMgr1 — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 10:25:51 GMT

An inquiry aged a year on my Equifax report and I went up four points. Close enough to the five points. My last inquiry on all CRA.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Sat, 10 Feb 2024 17:51:41 GMT

@CorpCrMgr1 wrote:
An inquiry aged a year on my Equifax report and I went up four points. Close enough to the five points. My last inquiry on all CRA.

Congratulations. You've truly gardened

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

DXness — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 23:14:59 GMT

This happened to me this month - nothing has been changing on my FICO 8s, but 2 inquiries aged beyond the 1 year mark and I received 5 points back on EX that took me to 740, the highest score I've had in my rebuild so far. Scorable inqs are definitely also binned on dirty scorecards, as some of them cost no points when they hit.

I can't tell what TU is doing since I have no free means of accessing that score and EQ didn't move since those inquiries were not on it.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

CorpCrMgr1 — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 16:42:27 GMT

Congratulations for your highest rebuilding score!!

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

AyaMai — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 17:50:32 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
My Experian FICO score went up 5 points today. I was quite surprised since nothing good has been happening with my profile.

I scoured the EX report and the only thing I can find is that one of my inquiries is dated 2/6/23. So if that became unscorable today, 2/6/24, my scorable EX inquiries dropped from 7 to 6.

Not sure what conclusions to draw, but thought I'd pass along the data.

Update 2/7/24. Although by my count, the number of scorable inquiries dropped from 7 to 6, experian.com is saying on its user interface, under "what's changed", that the number of recent inquiries dropped from 6 to 5. So I guess the next bin tops out at 5 not 6:

"On your previous report you had 6 recent inquiries—now you have 5, probably because an inquiry hit the 1 year mark. This means the inquiry no longer affects your FICO® Score, even though it will stay on your credit report for 2 years.
Keep in mind, we're only showing what FICO considers to be new inquiries and your credit report might show a different number. For example, FICO may group multiple inquiries for a new loan into one inquiry so you aren't penalized for shopping for a better rate."

Do find your post and the responses very informative & helpful for future credit card strategy. My Experian Fico 8 score has been dinged so many times in a short period time due to constant applying for new cards. The only way to improve my score it is to stop applying for 10 months which won't be an easy task, 6 months was the longest time didn't apply. Luckily I am at the point that there few cards I am interested in applying for & to top it Chase is denying me even to open a checking account with or without SUB.

Re: Inquiry drops off, EX FICO 8 --> +5

SouthJamaica — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 19:55:22 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
Ok - bin revision:
0, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-9 and 10+

It can be tricky knowing whether some inquiries are deduped to count as one. I am on the fence as to deduping of inquiries associated with seeking revolving credit. Possibly yes although most statements from Fico only mention deduping of installment loans. I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.

As we know, Fico 8 uses a 45 day dedupe.

Today my EX FICO 8 gained 7 points by reason of inquiries dropping from 4 to 3. This supports your 4-5 bin theory, @Thomas_Thumb