topic Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question in General Credit Topics

All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 16:29:35 GMT

I keep reading everyone say that FICO will take a hit when all cards report $0. Are there reasons when this would not be true. I can't say that's I've ever seen this myself. I generally just pay the card or 2 I use a coulple times a month and the statements will post at $0. Score has been hovering between 818/819. So this month I let my Chase Amazon Prime post with a balance. Total utilization 2-3$. The Chase Card was probably about 17% (Use this card for everything except the category that is currently 5% on Discover). I took a 7 point hit in FICO from TU which is reported through Chase. I have let just my Chase post a balace in previous months but it doesn't seem lift score either. Might drop a point or 2 actually. I suppose the 17% on Chase might be the larger part of a 7 point ding.

Any thoughts?

I know it doesn't make much difference with the good of a score, but I'm just playing around for best scenario before big purchase this spring. It took a lot of work to get scores where they are now vs dismall scores early in marriage so it feels pretty good to keep them there.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 16:42:20 GMT

Chase's Credit Journey gives you Vantage scores and not FICOs. You don't need to be concerned with ANY minor change in your VS scores.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 16:42:33 GMT

Where is the best place to get plain old FICO score?

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 16:46:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Where is the best place to get plain old FICO score?

If you want to see your real FICO 8 scores across all 3 bureaus, a recommended place is Credit Check Total and you can do this for $1. Be sure to cancel before your trial ends.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 17:10:41 GMT

Thanks I may try that site. I just noticed one of my cards reports a FICO Bankcard Score 9. Is that different from plain old FICO score? I see you have FICO 8 in your sig.

Edit: This card used Experian for the score.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 17:15:23 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks I may try that site. I just noticed one of my cards reports a FICO Bankcard Score 9. Is that different from plain old FICO score? I see you have FICO 8 in your sig.

Yes. The plain old FICO 8 models are sometimes called your beacon scores. There are many different versions and scores for each bureau. Some are industry enhanced scores. There is a plain old FICO 9 model also but IMO, not as widely used as the FICO 8 model.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

MrCrabs — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 21:51:20 GMT

You can get your Experian FICO 8 by registering on their website for free, also Discover IT gives you a free Transunion FICO 8, not sure what options there are for Equifax though.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

iv — Sat, 26 Jan 2019 22:20:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Yes. The plain old FICO 8 models are sometimes called your beacon scores.

No. They are not. (Not correctly, anyway!)

BEACON is an Equifax brand name for all their FICO Classic and FICO Classic industry option scores, just as Pinnacle is the Equifax brand name for FICO NextGen. (Or like Transunion used Empirica as a brand for their FICO scores.).

Thankfully, the those "FICO Score X" terminology has largely replaced per-CRA brandnames at this point, getting rid of the insanity that was "Equifax BEACON 09" being the brand name for Equifax FICO Score 8, and other craziness. (Like Experian Risk Model v2 being FICO 98, Equifax BEACON 96 being FICO 98, or both Equifax BEACON 5.0 and Transunion Empirica 04 being FICO 04....)

Below is a chart of the old and new names for each common FICO scoring model - you can see why the standardization was a good thing!

(Industry option naming/numbering follows the style of the base score.)

Model	EQ	TU	EX	Standardized name
FICO 95	BEACON	EMPIRICA	Risk Model
FICO 98	BEACON 96	EMPIRICA FICO Classic 98	Risk Model V2	Score 2 (EX only)
NextGen 1	Pinnacle 1.0	Precision/NextGen	Advanced Risk Score 1.0
NextGen 2	Pinnacle 2.0	Precision/NextGen 03	Advanced Risk Score 2.0
FICO 04	BEACON 5.0	EMPIRICA FICO Classic 04	Risk Model V3	Score 5 (EQ only) Score 4 (TU only) Score 3 (EX only)
FICO 08/ FICO 8	BEACON 09	FICO Classic 08	Risk Model 08	Score 8 (all CRAs)
FICO 9	FICO Score 9	FICO Score 9	FICO Score 9	Score 9 (all CRAs)

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 01:00:02 GMT

@iv wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Yes. The plain old FICO 8 models are sometimes called your beacon scores.
No. They are not. (Not correctly, anyway!)

BEACON is an Equifax brand name for all their FICO Classic and FICO Classic industry option scores, just as Pinnacle is the Equifax brand name for FICO NextGen. (Or like Transunion used Empirica as a brand for their FICO scores.).

Thankfully, the those "FICO Score X" terminology has largely replaced per-CRA brandnames at this point, getting rid of the insanity that was "Equifax BEACON 09" being the brand name for Equifax FICO Score 8, and other craziness. (Like Experian Risk Model v2 being FICO 98, Equifax BEACON 96 being FICO 98, or both Equifax BEACON 5.0 and Transunion Empirica 04 being FICO 04....)

Below is a chart of the old and new names for each common FICO scoring model - you can see why the standardization was a good thing!

(Industry option naming/numbering follows the style of the base score.)

Model EQ TU EX Standardized name
FICO 95 BEACON EMPIRICA Risk Model
FICO 98 BEACON 96 EMPIRICA FICO Classic 98 Risk Model V2 Score 2 (EX only)
NextGen 1 Pinnacle 1.0 Precision/NextGen Advanced Risk Score 1.0

NextGen 2 Pinnacle 2.0 Precision/NextGen 03 Advanced Risk Score 2.0

FICO 04 BEACON 5.0 EMPIRICA FICO Classic 04 Risk Model V3
Score 5 (EQ only)
Score 4 (TU only)
Score 3 (EX only)
FICO 08/
FICO 8
BEACON 09 FICO Classic 08 Risk Model 08 Score 8 (all CRAs)
FICO 9 FICO Score 9 FICO Score 9 FICO Score 9 Score 9 (all CRAs)

TY for the correction. I never quite picked up on the beacon score only referring to EQ. I have heard people refer to it as beacon/classic but after your post I realize those names are bureau dependent. I guess I'll have to watch the lingo going forward. I'm glad it is a little more simplified now. FICO 8 is beacon 9...lol!

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2019 05:26:24 GMT

creditscore.com and creditscorecard.com are two sources for free EX FICO 8 scores that update every 30 days. Sign up at both of these sources 2 weeks apart and you'll be able to get a fresh EX FICO 8 score every 2 weeks between the two for as long as you'd like.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 02:58:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Chase's Credit Journey gives you Vantage scores and not FICOs. You don't need to be concerned with ANY minor change in your VS scores.

I also have a Chase Amazon card. Paid it to $0 and took a 17 pt hit. Feel like crying. So are you saying that that when they report, any change in score is not accurate?

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 03:05:03 GMT

Any change to any score is "accurate." The real question however is whether or not it's relevant.

Chase Credit Journey provides you with a VS 3.0 score, which is not a FICO score. It's an unmeaningful/irrelevant score, as you should be looking at FICO scores since most lenders use them.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

SBR249 — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 03:18:06 GMT

When I accidentally had months with all 0s reporting my EX FICO takes a 16pt hit on freecreditscore.com (the EX service site). Like clockwork, the next month it goes up 16pts. Next time it happens, another 16pt dive.

The problem (or maybe advantage) of Chase is that they will report anytime you paid your balance down to zero, however many times midcycle you do it. So if you are using Chase in your AZEO as the reporter card, you will get socked with a 0 penalty as soon as you pay it off. It's a good way to get a quick score boost if you run higher utils but if you run a tight ship, it's useless for that. (BTW, AZEO is really not all that necessary anyway unless you need to eke out every single point for an app. Just keep util at manageable levels and let things report).

As for the OP, I suspect the point dip is less to do with letting something report and more to do with the 17% util. Generally it's recommended to keep util on individual cards below 8.9% to maximize score.

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 15:46:06 GMT

No wonder some people struggle to rebuild. To **bleep** many factors and now there are a million different scores. How are people supposed to know they are looking at the score that matters?

Re: All Cards Reports Zero Question

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 20:52:11 GMT

For people with 700 or lower, I can understand trying to boost it any way possible for an app. But anyone over 800, I just can't see it mattering that much to gain 20 points. These days it's almost unheard of to get a very low APR on CC, the standard seems to be18-20% regardless.

CU's and local Banks are where you'd go for single digits or low teens.

The ony benefit to 800s would be for Mortgages, IMO. And maybe Auto Insurance.

Most of the people trying to rebuild/build though, know almost nothing about these micromanaging steps. And are often misled by places like KK, blogs etc. on the correct path to do so. Luckily places like myFico exist to assist them, and I wish that more people can find them before too many mistakes are made.