BofA denies man with 820 score Alaska Airlines card based on "Credit Optics Score"

[gurusexy]

http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-credit-optics-sagestream-20160802-snap-story.h...

Joseph is 43, owns a house in Huntington Beach and works in the entertainment industry. He’d rather I just use his first name because he’s going to discuss his FICO credit score — it’s very high — and is concerned about identity theft.

At issue is a rejection letter Joseph received recently from Bank of America after he applied for a credit card that came with a bunch of Alaska Airlines miles. The bank’s decision, it said, was based on a variety of factors, including “your total relationship with us, current economic trends and a copy of your credit report or reports.”

It used to be that consumers needed to worry only about their FICO score, which primarily reflects how well you pay your bills. Now there are dozens of new players on the credit-reporting scene, each purporting to up FICO’s game by adding their own secret sauce.

Joseph’s experience shows that even if you think you have a stellar credit file, you may need to think again.

(Mod Cut-Due to copyright laws the entire story cannot be posted just the first few lines and the link, thanks for your understanding on this)

[mattmyFIC0]

All the more reason to keep those "little two" CRAs on ice, forever....

[righthererightnow]

maybe this is the future. I've seen several articles about 'millenials using no credit cards'... maybe these rankings will change, like it or not.

[ddemari]

thanks for sharing the article! very interesting. 

[Anonymous]

Only gave me an $800 CLI. From $3500 to $4300. (Asked for $7500).  Told me in the 'Sorry iwe gave you less than requested' letter that my TU FICO was 803. 

Not a real pro on scores and the border between poor/fair/good/excellent, but I thought 803 was pretty solidly in the 'good' area. 

They also gave the same blurb about 'Economic trends', 'your relationship with us' etc. 

Never ever been late with them and the card has zero balance on it, but until a few months ago, it was sitting at 80+ percent util. It was one of the last cards to pay off as it was fixed 10.99 percent interest. Only one lower was my 7.49 percent citi Diamond that I transferred to Slate in July. So of course,  as I was paying stuff down, these guys were later in the plan 

I guess, that despite the 803 score, they didn't like that I was at 80 percent for a while, or that I got a new slate card (though that has not shown on TU yet as far as I can see).

All in all, it was an interesting education that score is not everything. It is said utilization has no memory. Well, perhaps not as far as the CRA's go, but pretty sure it does as far as the lender goes. 

Not too concerned about the 'wasted' HP. TU (who they pulled) only had one in the last 12 months anyway

[BronzeTrader]

Nothing really new here. I have from 820 to 850 FICO scores, and still denied for some of the CCs, BA included. BA sent me a letter explaining that they already extend enough credit to me. It is true. It is not the end of the world....

[Anonymous]

Very useful information. Thanks for opening the door to more ways to approve or deny the consumer!

[Revelate]

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@righthererightnow wrote:

maybe this is the future. I've seen several articles about 'millenials using no credit cards'... maybe these rankings will change, like it or not.

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This was actually the most interesting bit of the article to me, I hadn't seen the Bankrate survey before.

I knew anecdotally that millenials were less likely to have a credit card in the circles I run in than my age-wise peers, but I didn't realize it was widespread TBH.  We've always known there's more than just a FICO score to getting approved for XYZ, but eventually I should start looking more into freezing my own little bureau reports.

[Anonymous]

This is suprising but a change in direction for sure!

[805orbust]

Hey Revelate, I know I've seen this discussed here before, but if you don't mind me asking, whom are the smaller bureaus to which you guys are referring. I always have the big 3 frozen, however definitely would like to cover all bases.