FICO scoring is intended to be invisible to the people being measured. It is
supposed to measure your credit behavior, not influence your behavior.
Long ago, people became aware that they could "tweak" their scores a bit
by altering trivial parts of their daily credit life. Like tweaking utilization.
Having all cards report zero except one isn't a normal behavior, it's a
behavior intended to influence scores. Getting the short term 10-20 point
bump in scores from tweaking may feel good, but it doesn't really give the
full benefit the score increase might suggest. A 760 profile while scores are
tweaked isn't as strong as a profile that scores 760 just living.
I look at it as a tweaked score isn't natural. The score you have when you
ignore short term FICO effects of your behavior is a better indicator of your
real credit report standing. Lenders have partially compensated for the
tweakability of scores by developing their own proprietary internal scores
and by manual review.
I wouldn't waste my time fussing over scores continuously. I do it when I have
an app I want to do, but realize it doesn't do as much as the raw fico might suggest.
Curiously, mortgages seem to be much more influenced by raw fico score than credit
cards. 95% of the time I let all my statements cut with whatever I spent that month and
PIF on the due date.
+
850 FICO8 since 2015, Thanks MyFICO - 5+ years since last HP
@thom02099 wrote:I, along with others, understand your frustration. Yes, it's a struggle sometimes, and things don't make sense to us mere mortals. However, calling FICO a scam is a bit of a stretch. They aren't scamming anyone.
agree 
one of the things that doesn't make sense to this mere mortal is "things that negatively impact" my score being "balances on 45% on your accts"
never mind that my score is in the 800's, overall util is <3%, and the balances that are reporting are in the <$100 range for $10k CLs...
I obsessed over my score right before I applied for my car loan and spent a great deal of time here trying to learn how to make the score better. Afterwards I really took it easy and not worried about it as much (goal achieved....for now). Well, now the scores actually went up without any huge effort, just paid the cards on time. I believe you should use the knowledge of credit scores to your advantage when you are trying to apply for credit but to do this everyday would be stressful! Having said that, I understand that getting to 760 is easier than getting to 800 from a 760.....sort of like that plateau you get after losing 30+ pounds and that last 5 lbs just wouldn't budge...and I can imagine the frustration.
Just like I said they carve 11 points off my SCORES for have zero balance on all cards then the one card post last night with 128.00 out of 2000 CL and here comes the 11 points back. IT'S A SCAM. It really is a scam. Took me a month to set all this up but I forget the one I left is not dues until 24th each month instead of 20th. I was thinking no problem they don't update until end of month but I was wrong. That makes the entire notion of rescoring sort of questionable.
This is a scam to do this to us. We own this information and I can not log into this site or any credit site without be bombarded with ADS on buy this or buy that to improve your score or omg you need this to protect your idenity theives are ready to steal it today.
I am so sick of this. You say don't watch it so close unless you plan to buy something soon. Try 250,000 for 6 acres and two rentals on it.
Yea I am thankful my scores are better. I started at 533 and now way into the mid 700 range but I want all 3 at 760 for the best rates. 760-800 is where I plan to stay the rest of my life. I learned the hard way and I have people tell me now " I don;t need credit I pay cash for everything" yea well I hope you know you will live in a rental if that or a 4000 house the rest of your life. I said we all have to have and need our credit. Its a part of life. I will be glad when in 25 years this scam is over and they have new ways to look at a person and their credit profile for payback on loans. It's coming just no time soon as these agencies have found a way to make billions. Do you think republicians really want abortion to go away ? Heck no that is their primary hot topic to get their stupid base in an uproar at election time. The real threath to americans now are amercians. We are the ones that hurt this country most not others.
Starting FICO Score 2007: >> >> 533 -- God those were some Dark Days !!