@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I wonder whether BBS or iv might get a few extra points on V3 if their total utilization went from < 1% to something like 4.2%. I believe TT has conjectured that V3 has a sweet spot around there -- and that ultralow utilizations by comparison (e.g. 0.7%) have a small scoring penalty.
While my reported utilization usually sits at 1% aggregate, I have taken it as high as 5% at least once in the last 8 months and it's come in at 3% and 4% a couple of times as well just the way balances fell when I wasn't micromanaging them. I never saw any clear score shifts on my VS 3.0's (that I couldn't tell were from something else) so I'm not sure that those utilization changes mattered on my profile.
Given that the spike manifest on three separate occassions (each a year apart) somewhere in the 4.0% to 6.0% utilization range, I suspect other clean profiles would show a spike as well. The observed peak score was 2 points higher than achievable in the 0% to 1% UT plateau. The spike is difficult to encounter real time with actual data. What started me on this investigation was an actual 5 point VS3 score spike on all three CRAs going from a reported 3% AG UT to a reported 4% AG UT. The EQ and TU VS3 score jumps happened even though more cards had balances and highest individual card UT increased. I saw the same result on EX VS3 score from credit.com.
Even more enlightening was the drop in Experian NE score to 829 from 840 (2/8/2016). Experian NE had always remained at 840 up to this point in time. The credit scoring models were considering the change in # accounts reporting and change in AG UT% but, EX VS3 and EX NE scores were moving in opposite directions.
I pulled a 3B report from MyFico (2/14/2016) and saw a dramatic drop in EQ mortgage score (809 => 764) due to all cards reporting balances (6 of 6) along with notable drops in TU mortgage (823 => 812) and EX mortgage (837 => 832). I pulled another report in March after reducing # cards reporting to 3 from 6 (AG UT down to 2% from 4% - this is inconsequential) and scores rebounded. Conclusion: Various other credit scoring models were seeing and reacting negatively to increase in # accounts with balances and/or increased AG UT% but, VS3 does not look at # accounts with balances and VS3 liked a UT in the 4% to 5% range better than a UT in the 3% range. [side note: All Classic Fico 8 scores remained at 850 - benefit of buffer?]
Note: CK summarized UT to the nearest whole number so the real data point lacks precision. I think CK truncates which, if correct, means the reported 4% was somewhere between 4% and 5%.
I'd be interested in seeing results for your file - if you are willing to conduct a high resolution simulation. The spike is abrupt so incremental increases in AG UT% should be limited to 0.2% when testing utilization in the 4% to 6% range. It appears the peak can move depending on profile specifics as it manifest around 4.5% to 4.7% one time and then around 5.5 - 5.7% another time a year later.
So far, no takers on using CKs simulator to generate detailed simulation data on VS3 score vs aggregate UT%. Generating the data points would take 10 minutes. Keying in results and generating a graph (like the below) probably another 10 to 20 minutes. Again, pinpointing the peak requires testing small incremental changes and the actual maximum was not static.
Initial (2016) simulation/graph
Recent (late 2018) simulation/graph
