topic Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

ForwardLooking — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 03:36:56 GMT

After a few years of rebuilding my credit, I am starting to see reason codes for "What's hurting your score" that are not too bad and are cured over time. For instance, "Short revolving history" makes sense as I closed all my old sub-prime cards that charged fees and opened more premium cards. "Loan balances" is correct as I have a car loan that is only 25% paid off and I just bought a house, so the mortgage is showing almost nothing paid off so far. "New Account" -- well duh, I just bought a house.

The one that bothers me though is "Consumer finance accounts". I think I have linked this to an old synchorny account that was closed 9.5 years ago. It is listed on my reports as type "CHARGE" and was for Amazon only. How much is this holding me back, score wise? Also, once it has been 10 years, can I ask the bureaus to remove that credit line if they don't do it automaticaly? I ask because I have had trade lines linger on my report for over 15 years after closing before.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

Thomas_Thumb — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 05:31:37 GMT

At most, 5 points.

FYI - negative reason statements are listed in rank order. The top one is having the most impact. When scores change it can be insightful to look for changes in statements and there order.

An HP is often listed as recently seeking credit. For example, the impact of a single HP is nominally 5 points. If another reason statements is listed below it, impact is likely LE 5 points.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

ForwardLooking — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 16:59:50 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
At most, 5 points.

FYI - negative reason statements are listed in rank order. The top one is having the most impact. When scores change it can be insightful to look for changes in statements and there order.

An HP is often listed as recently seeking credit. For example, the impact of a single HP is nominally 5 points. If another reason statements is listed below it, impact is likely LE 5 points.

Thanks Thomas! The other 3 listed are not anything I can control as only time will cure them. But the last one was something I thought maybe I could control. I do appreciate you clarifying the "order" and the importance of the higher ones vs the lower ones. That actually helps a lot!

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

JamesS84 — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:02:30 GMT

You can dispute accounts older than 10 years, but they’ll probably get removed anyway, and this issue doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

Realist — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:29:11 GMT

You can hold a perfect 850 score, and still find there is always something listed as to improve on by every credit metric that measures score. There is no absolute value, or position to earn within a perfect credit score - other than declaring as such.

Knowing this, why so serious?

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

ForwardLooking — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 06:43:57 GMT

@Realist wrote:
You can hold a perfect 850 score, and still find there is always something listed as to improve on by every credit metric that measures score. There is no absolute value, or position to earn within a perfect credit score - other than declairing as such.

Knowing this, why so serious?

Why so serious? I would say that in my journey to rebuild, I have had to take on a whole new way I look at my finances, debt, and spending habits. My credit score was one way I measured my performance during the rebuild journey. At this point, my scores are not bad and I could just move on. But I also feel there is more I can do, not nescicarily to improve my score, but to continously improve my financial and credit behavior. Today, I turn down every offer and teaser I get to apply for store credit or do a BNPL agreement whenever I checkout at a store, or even online, no matter how good a deal may seem. While I did do this 10 years ago, that is not in my character or nature today. Having my report reflect who I am today, my character as an individual, and my nature relating to finances is important to me. If consumer finance accounts are a valid risk factor, and I have sworn off of them a decade ago, why would I not want them removed in a manner similar to any other derogitory indicator that disapears over time?

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

BrutalBodyShots — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 22:29:12 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb in the graphic pictured by OP, my take on "New Account" would be more to the tune of scorecard reassignment associated with a new account, not an inquiry. An inquiry can be had without a new account, so I'd expect the CMS to state something like "credit-seeking" or "you recently applied for credit" or even more direct with "recent hard inquiry." With that being said, that CMS code could mean with scorecard reassignment that it's impacting score more to the tune of 20 points, not 5 (like what one may expect from an inquiry). If that's the case, the CFA code being last in the list could still equate to more than 5 points.

I'd estimate CFA presence to be "worth" more like 10-15 points on many profiles based on how common we see that negative reason code displayed. At 5 points "at most" IMO you'd see it far less, moreso just on really strong clean/thick/mature files.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

Thomas_Thumb — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 22:53:25 GMT

A new revolving account can drop score 15 points if no other revolver opened in the prior 12 months. That being said, a 9.5 year old closed CFA is unlikely to cost more than 5 points - imo.

As suggested, it can be insightful to look at order of listed reason statements. My example was specific to an inquiry - not saying a new account equates to an inquiry.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

pizzadude — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 23:01:28 GMT

With a FICO score close to 800 and no derogatory information, you're at the point where the scoring reasons have to dig around to find something ; in your case the only "negative" is the CFA account but it's my opinion that it's likely costing you very little ( if any ) in terms of a FICO score hit.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:38:09 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb do you believe that the age of a CFA and whether or not it is closed or open makes a difference in terms of FICO scoring? I never thought it did, but I have no evidence to support it either way.

Have you ever seen any actual data points of a CFA negative reason code being eliminated from a CFA coming off a report and the associated score shift?

@pizzadude- I've never seen a FICO negative reason code present without a scoring impact (of at least 1 point) being the case. Have you? That being said, if a CFA negative reason code is present, as far as I know a scoring penalty must be imposed on the file in question. As far as how much one is worth is certainly open to speculation.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

Thomas_Thumb — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:19:20 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb do you believe that the age of a CFA and whether or not it is closed or open makes a difference in terms of FICO scoring? I never thought it did, but I have no evidence to support it either way.

Have you ever seen any actual data points of a CFA negative reason code being eliminated from a CFA coming off a report and the associated score shift?

Absolutely, age reduces score impact on all negative attributes assigned a long duration.

I don't think Fico views seeking new credit (HPs) or opening a new account as a long term risk. Those risk factors have a 12 month cutoff with no fade.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

pizzadude — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:07:16 GMT

@BrutalBodyShots those are all good questions -- you're probably right that there is some negative impact associated with the scoring reasons but it can be murky as to whether this reason by itself is responsible for a FICO score ding, or how / whether it places you in a certain scoring bucket. Conventional thinking is that the lower the reason in the list, then it's impact is also likely less than the other factors listed, at least that's what I've generally seen.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:13:56 GMT

I agree 100% that placement in the list goes from most impactful to least impactful. I however have never encountered a data point where a negative reason code was present that wasn't impacting a score at least one FICO point. It's also worth noting that while most CMS or FICO score souces will only provide up to 4 negative reason codes (shout out to Discover for giving up to 5!) most profiles have many more factors that equate to penalties worn that simply aren't displayed. I've seen super strong credit profiles that have a CFA listed higher up on the list, and super weak profiles where it's either at the bottom of the list or omitted completely since there are at least 4 greater score-impacting codes in place.

Re: Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Consumer Finance Accounts

ForwardLooking — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 21:59:09 GMT

For what it is worth and to address @BrutalBodyShots comment on the "New Account" score code, I have a new Mortgage since September and 1 new revolver I opened in July. Both of those accounts had Hard Pulls that show on my report. Nothing outside of those accounts inquiry or account wise for the past 12 months.