topic Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 18:15:20 GMT

I know charge cards don't affect utilization, but does the total balance owed still have a large affect on your score? My scores dropped anywhere between 30-78 points from allowing my gold card to post with a $2500 balance. Even though my util is still 1%?

the only other thing that changed was my AoOA hit 7 1/2 years. So maybe I was moved to a different score card?

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Jnbmom — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 20:28:03 GMT

Nope charge cards should not effect utilization at all, and are they vantage scores ? Only thing I could see is the accounts with balances but it wouldn't be that much of a drop . But if it's vantage scores there's no point of discussion.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 20:55:36 GMT

@Jnbmom

Fico8, always fico I don't worry about VS

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 22:04:22 GMT

@Jnbmom

also just to clarify, I know charge cards don't affect utilization that wasn't my question,

when you click on amount of debit it's split into sections

utilization ratio

accts with balances

Total debt

my question was, even though utilization was not affected, does the "total amount owed" portion also affect your score? I know some of the older fico models used high balance as your credit limit meaning my Amex would have essentially been maxed out since this is the largest balance I've ever posted. But fico 8 doesn't do this as far as I know.

And I also know vantage has a section for amount owed and your score is penalized for both high utilitization and also penalized again for high debt amounts/low available credit. I was wondering if maybe fico had something similar to this. But it doesn't appear they do.

which leads me back to square 1, I had a 78 point drop, and no discernible reason why. The only lead I have now is the fact that my age of oldest again went from 7 years 5 months to 7 years 6 months. Maybe 7 1/2 years is a threshold for a different score card.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

JoeRockhead — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 22:25:43 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@Jnbmom

also just to clarify, I know charge cards don't affect utilization that wasn't my question,

when you click on amount of debit it's split into sections

utilization ratio
accts with balances
Total debt

my question was, even though utilization was not affected, does the "total amount owed" portion also affect your score? I know some of the older fico models used high balance as your credit limit meaning my Amex would have essentially been maxed out since this is the largest balance I've ever posted. But fico 8 doesn't do this as far as I know.

And I also know vantage has a section for amount owed and your score is penalized for both high utilitization and also penalized again for high debt amounts/low available credit. I was wondering if maybe fico had something similar to this. But it doesn't appear they do.

which leads me back to square 1, I had a 78 point drop, and no discernible reason why. The only lead I have now is the fact that my age of oldest again went from 7 years 5 months to 7 years 6 months. Maybe 7 1/2 years is a threshold for a different score card.

Unpaid debt is 30% of your score, number of accounts with balances... both of which you can easily remedy.

What's your DTI%

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 21:44:03 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@Jnbmom

also just to clarify, I know charge cards don't affect utilization that wasn't my question,

when you click on amount of debit it's split into sections

utilization ratio
accts with balances
Total debt

my question was, even though utilization was not affected, does the "total amount owed" portion also affect your score? I know some of the older fico models used high balance as your credit limit meaning my Amex would have essentially been maxed out since this is the largest balance I've ever posted. But fico 8 doesn't do this as far as I know.

And I also know vantage has a section for amount owed and your score is penalized for both high utilitization and also penalized again for high debt amounts/low available credit.

VantageScore penalizes for low available credit. If your total balance is high, your available credit is reduced accordingly.

It is well known that Fico score algorithms look at total balance as a scoring factor. A high AMEX charge card balance would be included in total (aggregate) debt (amount owed) but not aggregate revolving utilization. The total debt metric carries less weight than utilization. The high reported AMEX balance should not impact score more than 10 points (is amex a new account?). Having an additional card report a balance could drop Fico 8 score 5-10 points depending on if it takes you to 100% of cards with balances.

Fico EX score 2 used for mortgages does look at charge card (current balance)/(high balance) as card utilization. In your case CB/HB is likely 100%. That could drop EX score 2 only - perhaps as much as 30 points on thin files. This psuedo utilization is not relevent to any other Fico 3B score.

Many posters have presented data suggesting 90 months is an AAoA threshold. However, crossing above that threshold positively impacts score 0-7 points. AAoA is NOT a scorecard factor, AoOA is.

In summary, none of the data you have provided accounts for the point loss you mention. Something else is also at play.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sun, 02 Feb 2025 23:33:14 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb

That's exactly why I'm so confused. I never expected my score to drop that much from an Amex balance especially because my aggregate util is 1% and my individual utilizations are 1%, 0%, and N/A for the Amex.

yes, the Amex is just over 3 months old. So pretty new.

to clarify, exp dropped 30 points and TransUnion dropped 78. I do have a very low total credit limit, about 6 grand between my cards. So I have about $2500 total balance out of $6000 total credit.

Other small changes that happened recently

- oldest account hit 7 years 6 months

- average age of accounts dropped from 2 yeaes 3 months to 2 years 1 month (dropping below 2 years would have done some damage I'm guessing but it's still above 2 years)

- age of newest account dropped from 5 months to 3 months (going below 3 months would have lost me about 10 points but it is still above the 3 month mark)

Please note that some of these changes had already occurred weeks ago, but I included all recent changes to help paint a more full picture.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Patient957 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:12:41 GMT

@SRT4kid93

Any new reason code(s) pop up?

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:33:13 GMT

@Patient957

Actually yes.

before the update when my age of oldest account was at 7 years 5 months. One of the positive reason codes was "established history"

once I hit 7 years 6 months, that positive code went away, and "you do not have an established history" is now a negative reason code.

Again, average age of accounts only lost a couple months, went from 2 years 3 months to 2 years 1 month. So, that is what made me think maybe I changed score cards? Because I know AoOA is a scorecard factor.

if I did change from young to mature score card, it would make sense why my "established history" went away.

becayse my account is now being compared against other accounts with 30 year history's, instead of being compared against accounts with 1-2 year history's. So I went from being at the top of the young side, to the very bottom of the mature side. Just a guess ?

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Patient957 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 19:50:48 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@Patient957

Actually yes.

before the update when my age of oldest account was at 7 years 5 months. One of the positive reason codes was "established history"

once I hit 7 years 6 months, that positive code went away, and "you do not have an established history" is now a negative reason code.

Again, average age of accounts only lost a couple months, went from 2 years 3 months to 2 years 1 month. So, that is what made me think maybe I changed score cards? Because I know AoOA is a scorecard factor.

if I did change from young to mature score card, it would make sense why my "established history" went away.

becayse my account is now being compared against other accounts with 30 year history's, instead of being compared against accounts with 1-2 year history's. So I went from being at the top of the young side, to the very bottom of the mature side. Just a guess ?

I think Fico 8 scorecard reassignment is believed to occur at AoOA = 3 yrs for clean profiles. And, yes people do report a score drop of 20-30 points I believe. You're on a clean profile, correct?

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 21:26:14 GMT

@Patient957

Ok well if it's 3 years then that couldn't be the issue. I have a late payment that's currently 3+ years old on exp and trans, equifax is no late payments.

I have done some research and it does appear that even tho charge cards do not affect util, the outstanding debt does still affect your score. Just not as much as it would if your util was also high.

because my total credit limits combined between all cards is still low. A $2500 debt is substantial.

as a data point. When I let my cap 1 card report 66% a couple months ago. It brought my aggregate to 25%. And that dropped my score 70 points.

so, it does make sense that $2500 ( much larger debt) could impact my score 70 points as well. Had it been a regular credit card, it would have brought my aggregate util to almost 50%. Which could have dropped my score close to 100 points. But since it was a charge card my util stayed at 1%, so the drop wasn't so steep. That's the only other scenario that makes sense

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Zoostation1 — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:20:20 GMT

@Patient957 wrote:
I think Fico 8 scorecard reassignment is believed to occur at AoOA = 3 yrs for clean profiles. And, yes people do report a score drop of 20-30 points I believe. You're on a clean profile, correct?

Can't speak for OP regarding clean or dirty, but I can say it either doesn't reassign on a dirty profile (likely) or if it does there's no score drop. I'm on a dirty profile with the not so common situation of a 7yr old BK7 reporting but an AoOA and AoORA only a few months past 3yrs. When I hit 3yrs (my AoOA and AoORA are identital since I only have revolvers on my report), there was no change , leading me to believe that for FICO 8 and FICO 9 there's no reassignment.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Thomas_Thumb — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:45:12 GMT

Fico dirty scorecards are not segmented based on file age. That segmentation attribute is specific to clean scorecards.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Zoostation1 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:35:22 GMT

@Thomas_ThumbThanks, that explains why nothing happened at 3yrs. Meanwhile I've got 2yrs 9months till I hit 10yrs on the BK7 and have a clean file.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 02:13:11 GMT

Can anyone tell me if a profile with a 30 day late over 2 years old is still considered dirty?

I thought I read somewhere that a profile is only considered dirty if

1) has a 90 day late or worse

2) has a 30/60 day late under 2 years old (once the late ages over 2 years, the profile is then clean, unless it's a serious delinquency which always remains dirty until the late ages off)

If that is true, that would make an account with a 30 day late that's over 2 years old "clean"

but I've also seen people say that any late makes a profile dirty, no matter of age or seriousness

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 16:28:33 GMT

@Patient957 @Zoostation1 @Thomas_Thumb @JoeRockhead @Jnbmom

well i have a bit of a mini update, my gold card re reported, and to try to figure this out, i let it report as a $0 balance. Leaving just my capital one card reporting a balance at this time. So far experian has updated with the new balance.

- experian lost 45 points and it hasnt gained back anything even after the new $0 balance report. Its very confusing because it lost the 45 points at the exact time amex reported the 2500 balance. So, if the $2500 amex balance wasnt the reason for the point loss, what was? I have looked at my reports 4 times and the only differences i was able to find were.

1) obviously the $2500 amex balance, which we have already determined was not the reason for the point loss.

2) average age of accounts went from 2 years 5 months to 2 years 1 month

3) age of oldest account went from 7 years 5 months to 7 years 6 months

4) age of youngest account went from 5 months to 3 months.

5) most recent late payment went from 3 years 11 months to 4 years

- Transunion was by far the biggest point loss, it lost 78 points, and im interested to see what happens when TU updates with the $0 balance.

Equifax is a little tricky as its my only bureau that doesnt have the 30 day late, and as a result its also very young. average age of accounts is only 8 months instead of 2 years. and Oldest is only 18 months instead of 7 1/2 years. So its probably going to react very differently compared to the other 2.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Patient957 — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 23:01:17 GMT

There may be something that changed on your reports that you're not seeing. Try pulling all 3 from

https://www.annualcreditreport.com/

Go over them carefully and you may find the reason. We're not talking about small score changes here, so there should be something important you're missing.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 04:00:30 GMT

@Patient957

here's the thing,

to future confuse things, my vantage scores all went up 20-30 points. So whatever caused my score to drop 78 points was unique to fico. If it was utilization related or related to a late payment it would have also caused vantage to drop. But that wasn't the cause.

after going over my reports before and after many times, researching every possible reason I could think of. nothing concrete has come of any of it. I couldn't find anything that would even come close to explaining such a large drop.

my age metrics were barely changed. even with a very substantial change in age metrics it would be a large drop considering it's only 15% of your score.

after the card went back to reporting $0 balance the scores didn't go back. So it must be something to do with the Amex itself reporting. But it barely changed much if anything. And I didn't cross over any thresholds, definitely none that would explain 78 points.. I am lost.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

Patient957 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 16:41:41 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
.. I am lost.

So am I. None of this makes any sense.

Maybe it would help if you list your current Fico 8 and VS3 scores for each bureau.

Re: Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

SRT4kid93 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 18:46:12 GMT

@Patient957

part 1

Fico 8 TU

dropped from 758 to 680

Vantage TU

Rose from 704 to 729

fico exp

dropped from 725 to 685

fico equifax

dropped from 754 to 723 (keep in mind the age metrics are different for equifax since it's missing my oldest account)

Vantage TU and Experian

both rose as well between 25-30 points

To refresh memories the only changes I could find were:

average age dropped from 2 years 3 months to 2 years 1 month (so it didnt drop below 2 years or any other noticeable threshold)

newest account age dropped from 5 months to 4 months (so it didn't drop below the 3 month threshold which would have been worth about 10 points on my profile)

and age of oldest account crossed over the 7 1/2 year threshold. Going from 7 years 5 months to 7 years 6 months.

- also I don't think this is a fico scoring factor because I've never seen anything about it but it was something I thought of, with the addition of the Amex, 3/5 of my accounts are now under 1 year old. So more than half. But again, I don't even think that's a thing and even if it was I can't imagine that would've been worth many points?