Looking for volunteers who have many credit cards

[Anonymous]

Hello all!  I am looking for people who might be willing to help out with a test of the FICO 8 model.  We'd be looking at one narrow specific scoring factor: "Number of accounts reporting a balance."

In that factor, the ideal is supposed to be one card showing a balance with all others showing $0.  (Several zeroes.)

What I am looking for is someone with:

    * Many cards (at least 8, with 10+ being better)

    * A clean profile

    * A willingness to keep his total utilization low (1-8%)

    * At most one open installment account (typically a loan, but could be an auto lease).  Exactly one is ideal.  Two installment accounts is ok but not ideal.

    * The ability to check his FICO 8 Classic scores.  The $1 trial at CCT is nice for that.

The test is simply to keep keep exactly one card showing a positive balance, then get all your cards showing a balance, then come back to 1 again -- pulling your FICO 8 scores ech time.  Really sweet (but optional) would be a person who has the ability to track the changes on his other scores as well, e.g. the mortgage scores.

It's really important to meet all the criteria above.  Multiple installment accounts screw up the test because they may already be counted as open accounts showing a balance: we want to see the difference between going from a very small number of accounts (1-2) to a very large number (100% of all open accounts = 9+ accounts).  We also don't want any confounding factors like utilization changes, inquiries aging off, new accounts being added, etc.

Let me know if you would like to help, and if so what your profile looks like (number of cards, number of installments, etc.).  I'll create the actual testing experiment inside the FICO Scoring forum, but I am just looking for people who could help here. 

[BungalowMo]

I fit everything, except all those zero's you're looking for. 

I can take donations to make it happen!! 

[OmarR]

Stupid question:

Does a mortgage count as an installment loan?

[simplynoir]

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@OmarRwrote:

Stupid question:

Does a mortgage count as an installment loan?

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Yes, it does.

[Anonymous]

And remember, one loan is fine for this test.  Two is ok though not ideal.  Three is too many.

[Anonymous]

Hello CGID,

What is the end result that you're looking for here?  Are you looking for reason statements, or just scoring changes associated with adding 1 additional account with a balance many times and then going back to the start?  I meet all the criteria for the test except that I'm a bit light on cards.  I've got 8 on EX, but only 7 on TU and EQ due to them not receiving Blispay reporting.

[Anonymous]

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@BungalowMowrote:

I fit everything, except all those zero's you're looking for. 

I can take donations to make it happen!! 

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Hmm ... and I thought "capitalism" was dead

[Anonymous]

Interesting. Will say I just paid to zero all accounts but installment and mortgage. Score took a dive of 16 points. Then this month I allowed $5 to report on only one account and the score went back up 16 points. Until my test I was under the impression I needed to have 1.5% utilization. In the past I have tested at 10%, 5%, 2%, and now my latest. Quite surprised to see that the $5 reporting for my YMMV profile gave me the same scores as when I had other percentages. Not quite what your doing but close using FICO 08 and the number of cards you reference. My test was just a curiosity and yes "curiosity killed the cat"

[Anonymous]

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@AnonymousInteresting. Will say I just paid to zero all accounts but installment and mortgage. Score took a dive of 16 points. Then this month I allowed $5 to report on only one account and the score went back up 16 points. Until my test I was under the impression I needed to have 1.5% utilization.

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I'm not sure how you got that impression, as I don't believe I've ever seen 1.5% as a utilization threshold expressed anywhere here on the forums.  I'm glad you figured out though that all you need is a $5 balance; It definitely doesn't need to be more.

There are in fact many creditors that will report a single $1 balance.  $5-$10 is more "safe" though for AZEO purposes, as some creditors will do a small balance credit and report $0, thus eliminating AZEO.  If the $1 does report, though, against say a $25k limit, that person is really at 0.0004% utilization, but for FICO scoring purposes that rounds up to 1% and is scored as ideal.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymouswrote:

Hello CGID,

What is the end result that you're looking for here?  Are you looking for reason statements, or just scoring changes associated with adding 1 additional account with a balance many times and then going back to the start?  I meet all the criteria for the test except that I'm a bit light on cards.  I've got 8 on EX, but only 7 on TU and EQ due to them not receiving Blispay reporting.

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I don't care about reason statements in this case because my belief is that FICO's reason statements in this narrow area are unreliable.  I have received this reason statement when I had two cards and two loans reporting a balance -- out of a total of 12 cards and 2 loans. 

I have also seen people post their belief that there is no scoring impact from having all cards showing a balance -- but when I probe more carefully I find that they have a small number of cards (and often several open loans).  A person who can go from 1 to 10 cards (say) with only one open loan would be a much cleaner test case, since he'd be going from (a) Less than 25% of his accounts and a small integer number of them to (b) 100% of his accounts and a very large integer number of them.

If we can repeat this test with at least four different people, we'd be able to confirm for sure whether or not there is a FICO 8 impact and if so how much it could be.

I think you would be a big help.  Sure it would be great if you had a dozen cards, but you'll still be able to test going from

1/7 cards and 2/8 accounts

to 7/7 cards and 8/8 accounts.

If raw integer number is considered by FICO, it may well be that 8 accounts showing a balance is enough to produce the maximum penalty.

So yeah I would be grateful for your help!