topic Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc... in General Credit Topics

Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

KLEXH25 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:09:49 GMT

How do you calculate account ages? Do you go by the date the account was actually opened? Or do you go by the first of the month? Is it different for each bureau?

I've been using the actual date of each account, but I have found that my scores seem to change on the 1st of the month, whenever I cross some sort of threshold. For example, my oldest account (which is closed now) was opened May 31, 2018, but on May 1st (2020) it looks like I got a bump in my scores for my oldest account aging 2 years (at least on Experian), and not at the end of the month like I was expecting.

Now I'm waiting for my youngest account to turn at least 1 year before for applying for anything. Do I wait until August 20th? Or will I see the score boosts on August 1st?

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:18:59 GMT

@KLEXH25 The algorithm considers everything to be opened on the first of the month in which it was opened. Also aging points are given on the first, sometimes you’ll see the alert dated the 31st for TU, IME.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:20:05 GMT

Additionally you can’t count on the CMS frontend to do aging calculations for you for averages, you have to do it yourself and using the first of the month.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:22:04 GMT

To be honest you can’t even count on the frontend to even calculate utilisation for you. If you don’t calculate it yourself, you can’t count on it, that’s pretty much the rule.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

KLEXH25 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:26:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Additionally you can’t count on the CMS frontend to do aging calculations for you for averages, you have to do it yourself and using the first of the month.

@Anonymous You lost me at "CMS frontend"...what does that mean?

I do all my own calculations. I even have spreadsheets for everything. But I've been using the date opened instead of the first of the month, so I need to update everything.

What about when it comes to 5/24? Does that go by the actual date?

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Girlzilla88 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:33:40 GMT

I cheat and look through my CreditSesame, CK and here/other places to see what they say for AaoA OaoA etc. XD Don't know how accurate they are since some show older accounts and other accounts don't even have that listed but it seems pretty spot on for when ppl pull my information

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

KLEXH25 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 19:41:14 GMT

@Girlzilla88 wrote:
I cheat and look through my CreditSesame, CK and here/other places to see what they say for AaoA OaoA etc. XD Don't know how accurate they are since some show older accounts and other accounts don't even have that listed but it seems pretty spot on for when ppl pull my information

Yeah, the problem with that is that CK, etc. that go by Vantage don't count closed accounts and I have two (my oldest CC and my first auto loan), so I have noticed that CK is very different from what I calculate & Experian tells me. And Experian's calculations were slightly higher than mine so I figured it must be using the first of the month.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:25:32 GMT

@KLEXH25 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Additionally you can’t count on the CMS frontend to do aging calculations for you for averages, you have to do it yourself and using the first of the month.
@Anonymous You lost me at "CMS frontend"...what does that mean?

I do all my own calculations. I even have spreadsheets for everything. But I've been using the date opened instead of the first of the month, so I need to update everything.

What about when it comes to 5/24? Does that go by the actual date?

@KLEXH25 that's exactly what I'm talking about, whether it's MF, CK, WH, EX, if you have a service that provides the calculated ages, utilisation, or whatever, you cannot rely upon it because it typically rounds wrong and other issues, so you have to calculate it like you're doing, yourself, and know it will be the first, if the open day was May 24, the fico algorithm truncates it to the first of the month for all calculations.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:32:32 GMT

We call it a CMS frontend because it’s a credit monitoring service and the consumer side that uses an application or a browser to access a website, well, IT calls that the frontend. It’s just for display purposes, as opposed to the servers that actually store the website, data, and databases, which are considered to be the backend.

To oversimplify, your app or browser is the frontend and it’s simply a template with a bunch of blank fields. The backend transfers the data from the databases to populate those fields in the frontend.

But the programming used to calculate those ages, utilisation, etc are not the fico algorithm; therefore they don't result in the same information and can't be relied upon to determine what the algorithm is calculating.

I hope that helps and was understandable?

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

KLEXH25 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:36:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
We call it a CMS frontend because it’s a credit monitoring service and the consumer side that uses an application or a browser to access a website, well, IT calls that the frontend. It’s just for display purposes, as opposed to the servers that actually store the website, data, and databases, which are considered to be the backend.

To oversimplify, your app or browser is the frontend and it’s simply a template with a bunch of blank fields. The backend transfers the data from the databases to populate those fields in the frontend.

But the programming used to calculate those ages, utilisation, etc are not the fico algorithm; therefore they don't result in the same information and can't be relied upon to determine what the algorithm is calculating.

I hope that helps and was understandable?

Got it - yes I understand now. Thanks @Anonymous !

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:39:29 GMT

And yes, even the EX app, which uses the first of the month to arrive at their calculations, you’re still cannot rely upon it. You have to calculate it yourself. If you want the correct information, that’s you’re only recourse.

Remember, fico created the fico algorithm that creates our scores, but it’s not fico that created the Experian app! And even though the MF app is associated with fico, the people that created the app are not the people that created the algorithm, I would be willing to bet.

I’m sure they gave the app development team high-level outlines and broad strokes, as they did with Experian and others, but they didn’t get the nitty-gritty, you can believe that.

And even if they did (they did not), they’re not gonna make it accessible to us that easily; it would make reverse engineering too easy, you can’t blame them.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 20:46:13 GMT

@KLEXH25 To be honest, that's why reverse engineering is so hard when trying to use dps from so many people.

The majority of the population don't realise the minutia and therefore inadvertently use data like that from the frontends to come to conclusions which are therefore many times inaccurate.

So then, we get data points of people saying hey at this age/utilization I got this, when it really wasn't that age/utilization in the eyes of the algorithm, so that's where we get a lot of red herrings and inaccurate information.

As a matter of fact, I should probably do a little write-up about frontends and this in the Primer huh? Maybe I'll just link this thread.

Re: Calculating AAoA, AoOA, etc...

KLEXH25 — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 21:39:00 GMT

Yeah, I agree that it's hard to come up with solid conclusions, when you don't have access to ALL of the information. Sometimes it's just circumstantial and not cause and effect. I admit that sometimes it's easy to jump to conclusions based on patterns I see, but I also realize that there are many details that I don't see and don't have the whole story.