topic Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately?? in General Credit Topics

Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:09:41 GMT

I pulled my EQ yesterday and was at 64%, and pulled it again today and I'm at 17%. Scorewatch shows that my score hasn't changed, but surely is should, shouldn't it? Does it take a day or two to update? I'm gonna be pissed if I don't get a score bump from this!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:14:00 GMT

Carrot1 wrote:

I pulled my EQ yesterday and was at 64%, and pulled it again today and I'm at 17%. Scorewatch shows that my score hasn't changed, but surely is should, shouldn't it? Does it take a day or two to update? I'm gonna be pissed if I don't get a score bump from this!

Where did you pull from?

What do you have your settings at?

SW page says it checks your report weekly for changes to score, for me I usually get alerts on Fridays.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:35:24 GMT

sidewinder wrote:

Carrot1 wrote:
I pulled my EQ yesterday and was at 64%, and pulled it again today and I'm at 17%. Scorewatch shows that my score hasn't changed, but surely is should, shouldn't it? Does it take a day or two to update? I'm gonna be pissed if I don't get a score bump from this!

Where did you pull from?

What do you have your settings at?

SW page says it checks your report weekly for changes to score, for me I usually get alerts on Fridays.

I have the unlimited report thing through Equifax, so I check it often. My setting is one point over my current score, but I usually catch it before it sends me an alert. I guess it checked on the 30th, so it will take a few days to update. I'm suuuure I'll get a bump from a reduction of util that large.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:37:45 GMT

Have you used the simulator on here to see how it says your score should change?

Then compare the simulator and results?

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:40:38 GMT

Just read the Scorewatch FAQ and it says it checks your score any time there are key changes to your report or weekly if nothing changes. I would call a 47% drop pretty freakin key, so hopefully it will update by tomorrow!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:43:47 GMT

sidewinder wrote:
Have you used the simulator on here to see how it says your score should change?

Then compare the simulator and results?

Yeah, it said I should be over 800, but it's definitely not. Surely it just needs a little time to update!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 05:11:58 GMT

Carrot1 wrote:

Just read the Scorewatch FAQ and it says it checks your score any time there are key changes to your report or weekly if nothing changes. I would call a 47% drop pretty freakin key, so hopefully it will update by tomorrow!

Lower utilization is not one of the items it checks for. Look in the Settings tab and you'll see a list of all the changes that will generate alerts.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:17:07 GMT

But wouldn't SW also give you an alert if your score changed. If he decrease his utilization %, there should be a considerable increase in his score, therefore creating an alert. This is the reason i am not sure if i want to get scorewatch. I don't know yet.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

tmacar — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:38:06 GMT

Utilization change itself will not generate an alert, but when SW checks the EQ report (once a week, I think) it also scores that day's EQ report. If that results in a score change larger than whatever you have it set for, it's supposed to email you.

Personally, I have credit watch through the Equifax site, which lets me pull Eq every day if I want at no additional charge, and Scorewatch through the MyFICO site.

The FICO site keeps track of my Equifax score, and emails me if it changes and if certain other things happen to the report. It also gives me a single site where I can also pull the score and report from Experian and/or Trans Union if I want to pay for it.

Equifax gives me all the free EQ reports I want, and I often pull one after the FICO Scorewatch tells me about a score change I wasn't expecting.

Also, while Equifax credit watch and FICO Scorewatch are both supposed to tell me about certain changes on my report, and I usually do get emails from both (with FICO always a day later) there have been times when only one of them noticed and told me about something that had changed. So I figure it's worth the extra few bucks to have both.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:31:59 GMT

So it finally updated! I guess it is just a day or so behind. Going from 64% to 17% took me form 754 to 775. Still waiting for the last card to update, but I should hopefully be over 800 when it does! This is freakin GREAT!! Two months ago My score was 655 and I could't figure out why! Thanks to this board I found out how important revolving utilization is, and how to work it! I can't tell you how incredibly excited I am!!!

Your Fico Score as of 07/04/2008

775

Negative Factors

The following 1 negative factor(s) are not hurting your score as much as before:

The amount owed on your revolving accounts is too high

Message Edited by Carrot1 on 07-04-2008 09:31 AM

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:39:29 GMT

BTW, I think it is pretty ironic that I find this out on Independence Day!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:03:26 GMT

Congrats on the 21 point increase. I'm just like you were. My revolving debt is the biggest negative factor on my score. Right now I'm around 38% util and can't wait to see what happens when I get my util down.

Good luck hitting the 800's. I can only dream about that for now.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:46:35 GMT

Dream? Hell, I was dreaming about it a couple of months ago! I bet you'll get there quicker than you think!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

tmacar — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:59:09 GMT

Phoenix, If I were you, with scores over 700, I wouldn't be worried about my score anyway. From what I've discovered, it seems that, as long as your overall debt isn't too large for your income, you can get anything you want with scores above 700.

Getting into the high 700s and into the 800s would help on something big like the interest rate for a mortgage, but I don't think it'd make very much different for most things. Of course, those high scores are still good to try for, because they give you a bigger cushion - if something hurts your score, the higher you are the better chance that you'll still stay above 700 no matter what.

By the way, 30% is the utilization "line" for most creditors. If you're over 30%, creditors see it as a red flag, and it hurts your credit score. The more above 30%, the redder that flag is and the faster it's being waved. Once you're under 30%, you're no longer penalized for utilization, and I believe that as you get even lower, say below 20%, then below 10%, you pick up some points for your "better than OK" utilization.

Strangely enough, I just discovered that a zero utilization of revolving credit is actually bad! I guess they think that if you don't owe anything, you obviously haven't had to pay anything, so they can't be certain that you will pay them if they let you have credit. That's teh only logical explanation I can come up with. But then who said credit stuff is supposed to be logical anyway?

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:26:34 GMT

tmacar wrote:
Phoenix, If I were you, with scores over 700, I wouldn't be worried about my score anyway. From what I've discovered, it seems that, as long as your overall debt isn't too large for your income, you can get anything you want with scores above 700.

No disrespect to Phoenix, as even my own scores are just barely over 700, but 700 is a mediocre score. It's definitely not the case that you can get anything you want as long as your score is above 700.

760 maybe. Just maybe.

tmacar wrote:

Strangely enough, I just discovered that a zero utilization of revolving credit is actually bad! I guess they think that if you don't owe anything, you obviously haven't had to pay anything, so they can't be certain that you will pay them if they let you have credit.

Yes, this is all over the forum. FICO wants you to show that you know how to use credit responsibly. If you have all $0 balances, you are not using credit responsibly; instead, you are not using it at all.

Anecdotally, we have discovered that the difference between $0 balances on all revolving accounts and a balance of 1-9% of one's CL can be as many as 20 points.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:45:42 GMT

cheddar wrote:

tmacar wrote:
Phoenix, If I were you, with scores over 700, I wouldn't be worried about my score anyway. From what I've discovered, it seems that, as long as your overall debt isn't too large for your income, you can get anything you want with scores above 700.

No disrespect to Phoenix, as even my own scores are just barely over 700, but 700 is a mediocre score. It's definitely not the case that you can get anything you want as long as your score is above 700.

760 maybe. Just maybe.

No disrespect taken. I agree wholeheartedly that 700 is mediocre.

Right now I'd love to refinance my mortgage, but I need to get my score above 760 to get the best interest rate. The difference between 710 and 760 is NOT insignificant to a mortgage lender.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

tmacar — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 05:57:03 GMT

I'm gonna be pigheaded and argue about this one.

First, let me explain that I don't actually think above 700 is a great score. a GOOD score is over 750. But over 700 is an OK score and, except for maybe the best possible interest rates on large purchases, my experience is that with all 3 scores over 700 you CAN get pretty much whatever you want, as long as you don't have too high an overall debt for your income level.

Only 5% of all people with scores from 700 to 749 will have a serious delinquency in a 2 year period, and such people are considered to be "low risk" when it comes to extending them credit.

Sure, you can be better than that. The figure for expected serious delinquencies among people with scores from 750 to 799 is 2%, and the figure for people from 800 and 850 is only 1%. And the people in these categories are, obviously, even lower risk than folks between 700 and 749.

But being just plain "low" risk is OK, and is pretty much always good enough to get whatever credit you might need.

Now there can be exceptions; It is mathematically possible, for example, to be just over 700 with a recent delinquency on your report, and a recent delinquency could easily scare a creditor off. But I'm talking about the "normal" type or report that has a FICO score over 700.

Let me give you an example. In late 2006 I bought a used truck that was already above the mileage that most creditors would finance, and, within about 3 months, was going to be absolutely over the age that anyone would finance. The dealer also had limited financing sources, and I had to accept a 29.9% loan. Luckily, about 2 weeks before it got too old for anyone to even look at it, I got it refinanced by a finance company at 21.9%.

After that, nobody would even consider it because it was over 10 years old and had well over 50,000 miles. Believe, me, with a 21.9% loan, I tried, including talking to firms who actually solicited my auto refinance business. In every case, with my FICO scores as high as 685, (that's probably why they were sending me all the refinancing "offers") as soon as they got the truck's details they told me it was too old AND had too many miles, and even if one of those categories had been OK, the other one would still have prevented them from touching it. And these were, mostly, finance companies, the "easiest" places to get credit.

In May I started paying my revolving way down, and by late June had it down to around 14% on my reports, and all 3 reports had finally broken 700. And a credit union, to which I didn't even belong at first, pulled Experian, which had a FICO of 701, and gave me a 5.49% refinance loan on the truck. Which is now like 11 years old, and has over 155,000 miles.

Point being, once I hit 700, they didn't care about the value of whatever the collateral was. They loaned me the money because of my credit, not because of my truck. And by the way, this particular credit union would not even let me open an account with them a little over a year and a half ago, because my credit wasn't good enough.

I wasn't saying that once you get over 700 you ought to forget about your score. What I WAS saying was that once you break 700 your score is OK, you shouldn't have trouble anymore getting whatever credit you need, and you don't have to actually worry about it like you needed to before you got over 700.

You've reached the "good" credit category as far as creditors are concerned. You're already OK credit-wise, and if you simply keep paying your bills on time, don't overuse your revolving credit, and keep paying your revolving total down by at least a little bit every month, your score is going to keep going up. There's no longer a need for analyzing every aspect of your debt, trying to decide if you'll get 2 more points by paying $100 to creditor A than you would get if you paid $110 to creditor B, trying to figure out if you refinanced a finance company loan at a bank would you end up gaining a net 4 points because you closed a finance company account or losing a net 2 points because you picked up another inquiry and opened a new account.

THAT'S what I was trying to say. Once you've gotten all 3 FICO scores above 700, you don't need to worry and over-strategize anymore. Just keep on keepin' on, and your scores will just keep getting better without any strenuous effort on your part.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:07:31 GMT

I agree that 700 seems to be the magic number for most lenders. Mortgages are different, but going through life with a 700 beacon makes things pretty easy. I really kind of disagree with 750 just being a "good" score though. I've always thought of 700 as pretty strong, 750 as outstanding, and 800 as almost unattainable. I have pulled credit reports on hundreds of people, and the number of 800+ scores that I have seen is very very low. And my clients are mostly upper class. I want to be in the untouchable category!

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

tmacar — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:10:11 GMT

I had remarked that someone shouldn't be having to worry about his score because he was over 700 on all 3 reports. Then several people, including him, chimed in saying that 700 is only a mediocre score, your score isn't "good" until 760, maybe not even then.

I was trying to explain that I didn't mean people should forget all about their scores after breaking 700, but that over 700 would get most people whatever they needed. Then I gave a "good" score as the point at which you probably weren't going to do much of anything, from a practical point of view, to improve your credit even as you went above that. I picked 750 as the "good" score because it's pretty unarguable. MyFICO's projected interest rates drop for the last time at 760, and the percent of the group that can be expected to default has its next to last drop, from 5% TO 2%, at 750. The only drop left is to 1% at 800.

Anyway, I won't be worrying about 700+ scores for a while now. I reached 724, but I also opened 3 new Visa/MC/AMEX/Discover type accounts, 1 new gas card, 2 new retail store revolving accounts, and 1 new credit union installment loan (although that replaced a loan that was from a finance company), all in the last 4 weeks. I'll really be surprised if I'm still above 700 by the end of June. And already had one new account, from May 15. The only thing I really have now in my favor is that after everything gets reported, besides having all those brand new accounts, I'm going to have a utilization that went below 10%. And while I'm hoping that the lower utilization will counter at least some of the loss for opening so many new accounts, I expect it to take at the very least 3 months to break that magic 700 again.

Re: Does Scorewatch Update Immediately??

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:13:21 GMT

I've been using Scorewatch and credit monitoring for my reports, I've been watching my reports very closely for the past year and anytime i receive a credit alert which is usually followed by a Scorewatch alert it has always taken 2 days for Scorewatch to update my fico score.