Howdy. A year ago, I ran into some problems with my student loans and went late on a bunch of them (long story). This month (April) was the point at which those lates became a year old, and would therefore no longer be considered "recent." I use Experian credit works as well as MyFico, and both provided score simulations which suggested my score(s) would go up considerably at the start of April. The predictions were:
EQ: +10, TU: +25, EX:+ +0
My scores at the time of the simulation were:
EQ: 675, TU: 672, EX: 659
So, the predicted scores were:
EQ: 685, TU: 697, EX: 659
The EX score was predicted not to move because I have a payment from last June that, for some reason, EX reads as a late payment (it wasn't - EX describes it as "on-time" but catigorizes it as "late" - dunno why). For the June update (when that "late" becomes a year old), the simulator predicted a 30 point EX increase, but that also involves a number of inquiries aging to a year as well.
My scores (EQ:+4, TU:+3) increased a tad between the report pull for the simulation (early March) and the month rollover. Unfortunately, just before the month rolled over, Synchrony bank did something silly and randomly reported my credit balance off-schedule. They did this on the one day I made a large purchase on my eBay Extras mastercard, and that was reported to the CRAs, bringing my utilization for that one card to 11% (5% overall), and causing my EQ and TU scores to drop by 1 point and 4 points respectively. EX did not move.
Ultimately, my scores on March 31st were:
EQ: 678, TU: 671, EX: 659
On the morning of April 1st, the score increases were:
EQ: +10, TU: +23 EX: +24
New scores:
EQ: 688, TU: 694, EX: 683
As you can see, the simulation was fairly accurate - and may have been perfectly accurate had my scores not changed at the last moment. The interesting part is that neither simulator predicted that my EX score would go up, but it did... by the most, actually. It's made even stranger by the fact that EX still lists my last "late" payment as being 10 months ago, not 12. I wonder what will happen when that date finally rolls around... the ECW simulator now predicts at least a 5 point increase, but we'll see when we get there.
For what it's worth, the "recent missed payment" negative reason code also disappeared from my scores as well - including EX.
Just providing this information so that we can better understand simulators as well as how the recency of late payments may be judged 
. Feel free to ask any questions~
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Simulators are notoriously inaccurate and have no rhyme or reason for anything similar to vantage scores. They just are whatever they are and the exact same situation will produce a 1000 different results. You will never get anything accurate and honestly, they aren't worth the time and similar to psychics, are purely for fun.I was inclined to believe that as well, until this happened. In this case, the simulations were very accurate - to within a few points of the actual result, and that was without factoring fluctuations in the credit scores before the month rollover. I'd say that's pretty accurate, particularly considering that these simulations were showing this sort of increases from as far back as December.
Again, we'll see, but the expected increase two months from now also makes sense, considering that a number of inquiries will age to a year and will thus stop hurting the score.
I've used the simulators before, but never checked to see if they were actually correct. Basically, the simulators just say the only thing that's going to make my scores go up is time. Well, if I pay $2,000 towards my student loan, I can gain a whole 5 points! I think I'll just wait it out lol. Nice to see you got a significant score boost, though! Keep up the good work. 
@Queen_Etherea wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Simulators are notoriously inaccurate and have no rhyme or reason for anything similar to vantage scores. They just are whatever they are and the exact same situation will produce a 1000 different results. You will never get anything accurate and honestly, they aren't worth the time and similar to psychics, are purely for fun.I was inclined to believe that as well, until this happened. In this case, the simulations were very accurate - to within a few points of the actual result, and that was without factoring fluctuations in the credit scores before the month rollover. I'd say that's pretty accurate, particularly considering that these simulations were showing this sort of increases from as far back as December.
Again, we'll see, but the expected increase two months from now also makes sense, considering that a number of inquiries will age to a year and will thus stop hurting the score.
I've used the simulators before, but never checked to see if they were actually correct. Basically, the simulators just say the only thing that's going to make my scores go up is time. Well, if I pay $2,000 towards my student loan, I can gain a whole 5 points! I think I'll just wait it out lol. Nice to see you got a significant score boost, though! Keep up the good work.
Thanks! Will continue to do my best. Looking forward to rejoining the 700s club