MyFICO Credit score simulator scam!

[Anonymous]

Essentially, we all fell for your click-bait thread....

[Anonymous]

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@tjmolly wrote:

Yes I know.  I put "scam" in the title to draw attention to my concern.

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Cool.  I never considered putting "scam" in my thread titles to yield more views.  I'll definitely keep this strategy in mind going forward

[tjmolly]

So, yesterday I get a MyFICO alert.  I dropped my CC balance some $3500 so it would be under 50% util, and what does my score do? That's right drop some 9 pts.  Nothing else changed, no new increases in debt elsewhere, normal aging.  I've been working on improving my credit profile fro the past 4 years via the methods I read on this very forum, and MyFICO decides to screw me over with a score drop. Nice! 

[Anonymous]

@BrutalBodyShots
I can see it now "Discover CLI scam", "Amex 3x scam", "how to get in with Chase scam" or "should I close Credit One scam". Hmm...last one actually makes sense.

@tjmolly
The point drop and change in utilization are probably unrelated. Just happens to be the score at the time of alert. Either way 9pts is pretty minor, nothing to stress about IMO.

[Anonymous]

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tjmolly wrote

"...and MyFICO decides to screw me over with a score drop. Nice!"

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"myFICO" doesn't create your score, they simply provide you with it; myFICO isn't screwing you over in any way.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@tjmolly
The point drop and change in utilization are probably unrelated. Just happens to be the score at the time of alert. Either way 9pts is pretty minor, nothing to stress about IMO.

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I'll take this one step further and say that it's definitely not related.  Lowering revolving utilization will not lower FICO scores.  If your scores dropped it was for another reason.

Out of curiosity, what was your aggregate utilization % before you paid down the $3500 and what was it after you paid it.  Also, are you certain that the payments reflecting the lower balances and subsequent utilization were all reported to the bureaus already?  I would think not, as you just started this thread 6 days ago and made no mention in the original post of paying down $3500, just something about $500.  Even if your timing was spot on as far as when the creditor reports to the bureaus and you got in your $3500 payment at the last possible minute it's essentially impossible in a 6 day time frame that you made a payment, had it posted to your account, your account sent the updated info to the bureaus and the bureaus all reported the new information.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the clarification Brutal. I realized I should have left out the word "probably" after I posted but I'm on my mobile with no way to edit.
Honestly I think myfico needs to add some kind of disclaimer. The score and alert being one in the same is a frequent misconception on the board. I can definitely understand the confusion for newer members though.

[tjmolly]

The $3500 payment was made a few weeks back and the reporting of the new balance on the account came along with the score decrease.  The Util % was >50% at that time and went under 50% of that card.  I'm confused to say the least.  Thick file >20yrs, 3 open CC, 1 AU CC, a few installment loans to include student loans, auto and mortgage.  No real changes except a recent decrease in overall debt between installment and CC.  It's beyond me why the score would drop like that suddenly.  I heard of rebucketing but to me that's just a easy excuse for the score drops. Thanks for the input though.

[Anonymous]

Thick file isn't a reason for a score drop, but it certainly is a reason for a smaller score gain. 

I was just chatting about this in another section of this forum with another member.  He and I both paid down our utilization about 39 percentage points to a single digit percentage.  He gained about 100 points from doing so, I gained about 3 points.  The difference was my file is pretty aged and thick while his was relatively young and more volatile to utilization changes.

[marty56]

The accuracy of the score simulator isn't nearly as important as the adviceit gives you on how to improve your score.  The advise on some of the FAKO sites on how to improve your score may actually hurt your score.