topic Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement: in General Credit Topics

TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 03:49:05 GMT

Interesting one here, negative reason statement pictured below. In reading it, to me it sounds like utilization increased across a threshold. What really happened though (IMO) is that I was dinged for number of accounts with a balance. To me, the pictured reason statement is sort of bogus. I find the Fico reason statement that actually says number of accounts with a balance too high to be much more accurate.

In order to generate the statement you see, I went from 2 of 7 accounts with a reported balance to 4 of 7 accounts with a reported balance. When I was at 2 of 7 accounts with a balance, those 2 accounts were at .005% utilization and .002% utilization. Aggregate utilization was at .0009%. The two new reported balances landed each of those accounts at .003% utilization and .02% utilization, bringing aggregate utilization up to .002%. This change resulted in a 4 point drop on TU VS4.

So, do we agree that my number of accounts with a balance was likely the cause here, or was some sort of threshold crossed?

Looking at dollars outside of percentages, my first two reported balances were $67 and $137 and my second two balances were $28 and $196. Maybe it's got something to do with dollars... like a second account with a >$100 balance reported? That's all I can think of.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

AndySoCal — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 01:24:11 GMT

@Anonymous

I did a little research this appears to be vantage score reason code and not FICO. See link below

https://www.reasoncode.org/code/898/45/not-enough-balance-paid-down-over-time-retail-accounts

Am I missing something?

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Slabenstein — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 01:28:31 GMT

@AndySoCal wrote:
@Anonymous
I did a little research this appears to be vantage score reason code and not FICO. See link below
https://www.reasoncode.org/code/898/45/not-enough-balance-paid-down-over-time-retail-accounts

Am I missing something?

Just the thread title.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 13:39:55 GMT

@AndySoCal wrote:

Am I missing something?

Yes, I know that it's a VS4 code. I'm trying to figure out what caused the 4 point score drop that's related to that code.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

KatSoDak — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:57:09 GMT

That reason code sounds like more than one month is being reviewed instead of just a snapshot in time. Could VS4 be similar to what FICO 10 is forecast to be?

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:44:36 GMT

While I get what you're saying with respect to the wording, that certainly is not the case with my file. I PIF all of my accounts monthly, so nothing is carried over from one month to the next. My reported balances may fluctuate on my consistenly used cards where one month it's $25, next month $180, then $58, then $332 etc. but that doesn't have to do with paying down balances over time, IMO.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

dragontears — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:51:35 GMT

@KatSoDak wrote:
That reason code sounds like more than one month is being reviewed instead of just a snapshot in time. Could VS4 be similar to what FICO 10 is forecast to be?

Yes, V4 is supposed to use trended data like FICO 10T is advertised to use

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:54:54 GMT

Yes, I should have replied above that I was aware that VS4 is designed to use TD. My point was that there is nothing near as I can tell in my TD related to the reason statement provided that should have yielded a score drop related to my file.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 03:49:17 GMT

How does this month's increase of $20 in reported balances compare to previous months, like if you made a chart of it?

Would this look like an anomaly?

Since we all know VS4 is using trended data and we all have 24 months of at least balance data on our credit files already, I wonder if it's looking back across all of it from the time you started receiving the score. (And not just since the month you were first able to see a VS4 score.)

Still....20 bucks....-4 points....wow.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 04:04:33 GMT

I think it would more or less follow the mean, where I've had plenty of months with greater reported balances and plenty with lesser. Even with greater ones reported I don't recall seeing a score drop and this reason code presented. There have been plenty of months where I've had a 4-figure balance report on my daily driver, but I'm not sure if I had only 2-digit balances on the others. Maybe multiple 3-digit reported balances is a thing, who knows. I will see if I can micromanage things a bit and report three 2-digit balances next cycle and one 3-digit balance and see if the 4 points return. Thoughts?

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 04:05:58 GMT

I should also add that my score shift was from 850 to 846. I'm not sure if there's top end buffer built into VS4 the way it is into some Fico score versions, but if so it's possible that my score drop was actually "worth" more than just 4 points.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 04:34:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I think it would more or less follow the mean, where I've had plenty of months with greater reported balances and plenty with lesser. Even with greater ones reported I don't recall seeing a score drop and this reason code presented. There have been plenty of months where I've had a 4-figure balance report on my daily driver, but I'm not sure if I had only 2-digit balances on the others. Maybe multiple 3-digit reported balances is a thing, who knows. I will see if I can micromanage things a bit and report three 2-digit balances next cycle and one 3-digit balance and see if the 4 points return. Thoughts?

You might be right about 'number of accounts with a balance' having an outside influence here.

Since it's using trended data, all I can think of is something to do with either population or sample standard deviation, i.e, the manner in which VS4 arrives at a conclusion for 'not enough balance paid down over time'. I don't know why it would use sample vs population (all 24 mos), but it's possible, I guess.

You know your report balances well enough to have a rough estimate of the differences from mean, so I'm probably off in the weeds with that.

Re: TU VS4 -4 pts, negative reason statement:

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 15:50:35 GMT

I would say that 4 revolvers with a reported balance is slightly on the "high" end for me, as the majority of the time I'm probably at 2-3. I have definitely been at 4 before though and even all the way up to 7 a couple of times (I believe in the last 24 months) for testing purposes. I guess all I can do to test the "dollars" factor is have one of those 3-digit balances report as 2-digit and see if it is met with a change.