topic Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 21:53:44 GMT

I know that FICO's models only count inquiries that are less than a year old (though they stay on the reports for two years).

But does anyone here know how that plays out precisely -- down to the exact day?

I have two inquiries dated July 2 of last year. I was planning to do a full blown credit pull (with all the scores from all models) on July 4 (i.e. a little over a month from now). I'd really like the pull to be as accurate as possible and therefore not to include those two inquiries since they are about to go off FICO's radar.

Is it reasonable to be certain that the July 4th credit score will NOT count those two inquiries? If not, why?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

PS. I realize that it's just a small number of points, inquiries don't play a big part of one's score (etc. etc. etc.).

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

CreditDunce — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 04:03:11 GMT

It may vary depending on the CRA. IIRC EX deletes INQs the 1st of the next month after 2 years. In other words, if you had an INQ from Jan 3, 2015, it will deleted Feb 1, 2017. While EQ and TU delete the INQ the day after the INQ turns 2 years old.

It is a big assumption, but it may work the same at the 1 year mark. It could also vary by the FICO model (04, 08, etc). It also assumes I am recalling correctly what I have gleamed for other posts. Maybe someone else will have more definite info.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

cdtotten — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 13:22:40 GMT

Past discussion has always seem to indicate that credit inquiries stop affecting your score after 1 year, and the effect of the inquiry fades over time, beginning around month 6.

That being said, the affect of an inquiry or two on your score is likely less than 10 points in total, so I wouldn't stress much about it.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 13:36:17 GMT

Thanks CD. Yep... one possibility that did occur to me is that they base the decision on the "month" field. Thus, to take your example of an inquiry generated Jan 3, 2015, it would continue to be counted during the next "12 months" -- i.e. the the next 12 times the "month" field changed. Only after that -- i.e. on Feb 1, 2016, when the month field changed for the 13th time -- would the inquiry stop being counted.

That seems like such a cumbersome method, given the simpler method of using the same M/D but adding one to the year. And aside from being clunky, it ends up counting some inquiries longer than others, which seems arbitrary and silly. (An inquiry occuring on March 2 would be counted for 28 days longer than one occuring on March 30.) But you are right, it is possible. Worse still, it's possible (as you say) that the FICO flavor tailored to one CRA for one model might use the "12 month" approach while a different model (for one or all CRAs) might use the "add 1 to the year" approach.

So, in my case, doing my myFICO pull on July 4 may result in some of the scores counting the inquiry and some not, depending on how they are counting the year. I suppose I could wait to till Aug 2, but that delay will create other problems for me.

If anyone else has any insight, do let me know!

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 13:45:24 GMT

Hi CDtotten. There's no question that FICO stops counting inquiries after a year. The question is "Whaf counts as a year?" Is it 365 days? (And then on day 366 the inquiry stops counting?) Or do you have to add 365 days and then add as many days more as will take you to the 1st of the following month?

(See my discussion with CreditDunce above.)

PS. Thanks for your feedback! BTW, I am not stressing out, it's just raised an interesting question that I am curious to know the answer to.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:42:51 GMT

Has anyone seen real indications that the effect actually does decline at the six month mark, add opposed to just rolling off after 12?

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

gdale6 — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:06:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hi CDtotten. There's no question that FICO stops counting inquiries after a year. The question is "Whaf counts as a year?" Is it 365 days? (And then on day 366 the inquiry stops counting?) Or do you have to add 365 days and then add as many days more as will take you to the 1st of the following month?

(See my discussion with CreditDunce above.)

PS. Thanks for your feedback! BTW, I am not stressing out, it's just raised an interesting question that I am curious to know the answer to.

No one knows the exact day or definition of a "year". IMO when stated they only affect Fico for up to 1 year that at 1 year+1 day their effect will be gone.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:26:56 GMT

GDale6... thanks much. I sure hope you are right! And certainly that approach would the simplest and most elegant.

BTW, when myFICO gives you all your scores, does it enable you to see how many inquiries FICO is including in the score? (I am not talking about the total point impact on the score, but just how many are being included.) If it shows me that, then I will be able to answer this question for everyone when I do my pull on July 4th. I.e. if I can see at that time that FICO is counting my inquiries from 07/02/2014, then it must mean that they have an impact all the way up through the 1st of the following month.

Canadian-I-S... great question. I have always heard the "declines in impact" claim, and it certainly would be reasonable for FICO's model to punish you much more for an inquiry 11 days ago than than one 11 months ago. Still, like you, I'd be interested if anyone has ever shown this to be true. (It's hard to test because age itself often increases one's scores, so six months later one's score could go up because of age or some other issue, not because the inquiry impact became less.)

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

jamie123 — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 22:01:18 GMT

I'm pretty sure it uses the exact date as "one year". I just had my Discover card turn 1 year old mid-month in April. My score jumped 10 points at exactly the card's 1 year birthday.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 22:32:59 GMT

That's encouraging and very hard information, Jamie. Thanks!

You are right that the card birthday suggests that it may be related to the inquiry for the card. (Assuming that the inquiry occured on the same day as the Discover account being opened.) On the other hand, it could also be a different milestone: namely that you had a revoving account go from being "new" (less than a year old) to not new (over a year). That's a different factor (how many revolving accounts were opened in the last year) from how many inquiries have occured in the last year.

Still, being able to narrow it down to this kind of exact date data is still very helpful. Thanks again.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

CreditDunce — Wed, 03 Jun 2015 23:14:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Has anyone seen real indications that the effect actually does decline at the six month mark, add opposed to just rolling off after 12?

I have read old posts saying the INQ penalty does not lessen at all during the 1 year. It has the same effect the entire time. The gains you see during the year are all the effect of other factors. For example, FICO may not penalize you as much for new accounts at 6 months, etc. There are certainly many reasons why your score can jump at the 6 and 12 month marks. A small INQ penalty could easily be swamped by other factors, making it impossible to discern.

I also read the INQ penalty is based on a step function. As in 0 or 1 INQ is the same. 2 or 3 INQs are the same. Etc. No idea if the poster had any idea what he was talking about. But he did sound knowledgeable.

I have also read many posts that say the INQ penalty gradually decreases over the year. But it is possible they were referring to your score recovering as opposed to the INQ penalty.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

gdale6 — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:32:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
GDale6... thanks much. I sure hope you are right! And certainly that approach would the simplest and most elegant.

BTW, when myFICO gives you all your scores, does it enable you to see how many inquiries FICO is including in the score? (I am not talking about the total point impact on the score, but just how many are being included.) If it shows me that, then I will be able to answer this question for everyone when I do my pull on July 4th. I.e. if I can see at that time that FICO is counting my inquiries from 07/02/2014, then it must mean that they have an impact all the way up through the 1st of the following month. Not to my knowledge

Canadian-I-S... great question. I have always heard the "declines in impact" claim, and it certainly would be reasonable for FICO's model to punish you much more for an inquiry 11 days ago than than one 11 months ago. Still, like you, I'd be interested if anyone has ever shown this to be true. (It's hard to test because age itself often increases one's scores, so six months later one's score could go up because of age or some other issue, not because the inquiry impact became less.)

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

EW800 — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 01:06:18 GMT

I am hoping that perhaps I can share some useful information on this topic in a couple of days. I have one inquiry on my TU report that is under a year old (the other Inq on this report is about 15 months old), however it will have its one year birthday on June 6. Additionally, on June 6th my most recent new account, a Barclay CC, will be one year old. I am hoping that between the inq hitting a year, coupled with most recent new account hitting one year, I might see a couple of points. If I am not mistaken, I have learned through these forums that accounts are considered new for two years, so perhaps the one year birthday of a new account has no impact?

If I see any detectable score change, I will report back.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

cem13 — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 01:10:54 GMT

@cdtotten wrote:
Past discussion has always seem to indicate that credit inquiries stop affecting your score after 1 year, and the effect of the inquiry fades over time, beginning around month 6.

That being said, the affect of an inquiry or two on your score is likely less than 10 points in total, so I wouldn't stress much about it.

My FICO jumped 2 points after 1 year. When the INQ fell off, my score DID NOT CHNAGE.

So in my case, FICO stopped scoring after 1 year but they remained on my CR for lenders to see. YMMV

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Revelate — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 06:03:01 GMT

@CreditDunce wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Has anyone seen real indications that the effect actually does decline at the six month mark, add opposed to just rolling off after 12?
I have read old posts saying the INQ penalty does not lessen at all during the 1 year. It has the same effect the entire time. The gains you see during the year are all the effect of other factors. For example, FICO may not penalize you as much for new accounts at 6 months, etc. There are certainly many reasons why your score can jump at the 6 and 12 month marks. A small INQ penalty could easily be swamped by other factors, making it impossible to discern.

I also read the INQ penalty is based on a step function. As in 0 or 1 INQ is the same. 2 or 3 INQs are the same. Etc. No idea if the poster had any idea what he was talking about. But he did sound knowledgeable.

I have also read many posts that say the INQ penalty gradually decreases over the year. But it is possible they were referring to your score recovering as opposed to the INQ penalty.

I haven't seen a lessening of inquiries in my own data, it's always appeared to be one off / one on = same change numerically according to MF monitoring.

Step function: in my sprees it's held, and people who have done extensive testing previously have seen it to... after a while inquiries just stop hurting altogether. Diminishing damage much like other places in the algorithm.

It's just my report which has all sorts of dirty birdy things on it, fairly confident the step function holds at all credit strata, not so certain about the no reduction in damage at higher score strata.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 13:47:35 GMT

Many thanks to everyone for all your thoughts. Very helpful! To recap on the primary question:

When FICO says that they stop counting your inquiry after a year, how exactly do they implement that?

(a) They stop considering it 365 days after the date of the inquiry

(b) They add 365 days, and then add an additional number of days to move you to the 1st of the month, and then on the 1st stop considering it. (Much like the CRAs sometimes handle the removal of inquiries at the two year mark.)

We are collectively leaning toward (a). We have some hard evidence for it, but the problem with our evidence is that, although a boost in score is being found exactly 365 days after an inquiry, the cases thus far have the inquiry occuring on the same day as another major credit event, typically the opening of a new credit card. Thus it is not entirely clear whether the boost is due to the inquiry falling of FICO's 1-year radar, or whether it is (as expected) the result of a "new" revolving account becoming 1 year old.

If anyone knows of a situation where...

their score went up a small amount exactly 365 days after the inquiry, but....

no other credit event (like being approved for a card) occured on or within a few days of that inquiry

... this would be a very compelling piece of evidence for (A). (Though it would not rule out possibility C.)

If anyone has seen this happen, do let me know. Also if anyone has any evidence from FICO's published ;language, or even respected credit analysts who know FICO well, like John Ulzheimer, that would be interesting. The language I have seen so far often says "12 months" rather than a year, which suggests that B could be a possibility.

Again, although this has a minor practical impact for me (if I am going to pay money for a pull, I'd ideally like to do it on a day where my 367 day inquiries have fallen off FICO's radar), it's mostly just of theoretical interest. It's fun (for me) trying to understand how FICO implements things. Many thanks again to all.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 04:27:42 GMT

In the name of sharing data, some data --

Last week my score was 720 at Experian, it has been stuck at that number for a couple months, and it was up to date as they had posted an updated balance and I believe that kicks off a rescore.

Since then over the past week my TWO most recent inquiries rolled over the 6 month mark, and then another statement balance posted -- in fact, iimproving my utilization slightly because when it posted Experian picked up on the auto CLI from $1000 to $2500 I got from Synchrony on my Amazon store card. That extra $1500 shaved perhaps a half percent off my utilization.

So those are both events that SHOULD raise my score--slightly better utilization AND two inquiries aging over 6 months.

Want to guess what my score is this week?

720. No change.

What that data tells us: Nothing happens to an inquiry at the 6 month mark, and minor changes in utilization (from something between 4-5% to something slightly lower still between 4-5%) don't matter.

Unfortunately.

Now I have my oldest card AGING to the 12 month mark in 30 days. I am predicting I will see a score rise from that, however small.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 04:31:35 GMT

Interesting discussion. Thanks.

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

NRB525 — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 12:27:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

In the name of sharing data, some data --

Last week my score was 720 at Experian, it has been stuck at that number for a couple months, and it was up to date as they had posted an updated balance and I believe that kicks off a rescore.

Since then over the past week my TWO most recent inquiries rolled over the 6 month mark, and then another statement balance posted -- in fact, iimproving my utilization slightly because when it posted Experian picked up on the auto CLI from $1000 to $2500 I got from Synchrony on my Amazon store card. That extra $1500 shaved perhaps a half percent off my utilization.

So those are both events that SHOULD raise my score--slightly better utilization AND two inquiries aging over 6 months.

Want to guess what my score is this week?

720. No change.

What that data tells us: Nothing happens to an inquiry at the 6 month mark, and minor changes in utilization (from something between 4-5% to something slightly lower still between 4-5%) don't matter.

Unfortunately.

Now I have my oldest card AGING to the 12 month mark in 30 days. I am predicting I will see a score rise from that, however small.

Your two INQ were both on EX? How many total INQ on EX, by month?

Did you have any other credit products prior to the August 2014 card app? All your cards, all your credit are less than 1 year?

Your utilization is less than 10% (kudos for that) so a half percent shift in that range, when not made by an actual open balance change, is probably not enough to move the needle.

How many of your 4 real credit cards (excluding PRG and Amazon Store) are showing any balance on statements? Can you list those out?

Re: when exactly does FICO start ignoring an old inquiry?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 17:18:34 GMT

OK, I was too hasty, looking at the data more closely only one of the INQ's that hit 6 months was on EX, the other is on TU not EX, so only 1 rolled to the 6 month mark.

Here are the INQ's I have on EX: 11/4/2015, 11/4/2015, 11/16/2014, 11/21/2014, 1/18/2015, 4/3/2015, and 43/2015.

So I have 2 @ 3m, 1 @ 6m, and 4 @8m. When I went from 3 under 6 month to 2 under 6 month there was no impact on my score, not a single point. I don't have visibiliity into my TU score so I can't see whether anything happened there. I can check my EX score daily through the Experian credit tracker product.

And yes, all my credit is less than 1 year, i moved ot the US in October 2014 and my oldest card was acquired a couple months ahead of that move. THAT data point is going to be interesting: I will have a card age to 12 months with no corresponding INQ, because the INQ actually hit my Canadian credit history (my oldest card was issued by a Canadian bank that also operates in the US, and they issued based on my Canadian history with them.)