MyFICO not updating properly

[Anonymous]

I have credit monitoring from 3 sources (credit karma, transunion, and MyFICO.

I recently paid off a 63% UTI on my AMEX, which has updated on the other 2 resulting in a large score update on that scoring system. I received a notification on MyFICO showing the current balance update from 6400.00 to 268.00 on all balances, but NO scoring update on any of the 3 monitored here.

That doesn't sit right with me. The SOLE purpose of paying for this product was realtime scoring updates. The other 2 systems, both non-FICO updated. This one has not. That's really frustrating. Considering the update shows a balance decrease, with no scoring update that tells me something is bunk with this "product"

Anyone else having this issue?

Thanks

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have credit monitoring from 3 sources (credit karma, transunion, and MyFICO.

I recently paid off a 63% UTI on my AMEX, which has updated on the other 2 resulting in a large score update on that scoring system. I received a notification on MyFICO showing the current balance update from 6400.00 to 268.00 on all balances, but NO scoring update on any of the 3 monitored here.

That doesn't sit right with me. The SOLE purpose of paying for this product was realtime scoring updates. The other 2 systems, both non-FICO updated. This one has not. That's really frustrating. Considering the update shows a balance decrease, with no scoring update that tells me something is bunk with this "product"

Anyone else having this issue?

Thanks

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Amex charge card or revolver?

I've gone from $2 to somewhat shy of 65% and didn't see a score change on a revolver, so in either event depending on your profile, entirely possible you just didn't get a score change as the update did in fact trigger on Transunion.  What's your aggregate limits if it was a revolver, and on a charge card balances are discounted anyway from individual and aggregate utilization metrics on TU FICO 8.

Not getting a score change with a trigger literally means we recognized the change to your credit report, but your score didn't change.  

[Anonymous]

Why would my score change under the other scoring system then? It's a credit card. So paying off a balance should indeed reflect on my FICO score.

[Anonymous]

My aggregate credit is 10k. My UTI was under 3% on the last report with no change in score under FICO - but a 123 point jump under Vantage 3.0....????

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Why would my score change under the other scoring system then? It's a credit card. So paying off a balance should indeed reflect on my FICO score.

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Different models use different scoring mechanics, there's no correlation between them at all unfortunately (unfortunately because it causes no end of consumer confusion).

FICO is calculated in 3 parts when it comes to revolving utilization:

1) Aggregate utilization

2) Individual tradeline utilization

3) number of tradelines with balances

Taking them in order, aggregate utilization, say for example you had 6K on a single card, and 100K in limits, paying it down by 5K in this case would take you from 6% to 1%: not enough to go over a breakpoint where the lowest is likely 10% or thereabouts from a long string of anecodtal reports over the past near decade.

Second one, I personally haven't found a breakpoint on individual utilization beneath the maxxed out limit which appears to be around 90% (could be 80, not sure why this number is still unknown frankly other than I haven't had time to really test it concretely); going from 6K to some small number (whatever it was) on a 10K line wouldn't be enough based on my data to cause the score to move.

Third, leaving a balance on a card that already has a balance wouldn't affect this part of the FICO algorithm.

As a result, while paying down a balance is never a bad thing financially nor from FICO's perspective (unless you pay everything off to $0, that's a negative) but unless you cross one of the thresholds on any of the three calculations, your score won't move.  

ETA: you only have 10K in total credit?  Which Amex is it. and no other cards or lines of credit or anything of the sort?  Re: Vantage - Vantage appears to be on dollar amount, FICO is all percentages.

[Anonymous]

Have to admit, that is very confusing from a consumer standpoint. I had read extensively that credit utilization was a huge part of your scoring algo, and that paying anything down below 30% was a huge windfall. To go from 63% to 3% seemed to me the ticket to raising my score. To read here, NOW, that is not neccesarily the case only aggravates me to no end. I could have just paid 6500.00 down on a new car since seeing no change in my score has ZERO residual benefit whatsoever. FICO = SCAM in my eyes.

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/2014/05/11/how-to-pay-down-credit-cards-to-boost-your-c...

"

If you know anything about credit scores, you know carrying high credit card balances is a big no-no. In fact, your debt-to-credit ratio (how much you owe versus your total available credit) makes up about 30 percent of your overall credit score. And revolving debt – like credit cards – weighs heavier than other outstanding debts – like your mortgage or car loan. So if you’re carrying a bunch of maxed-out credit cards, your credit score is likely in the tank.

The most straightforward way to improve your debt-to-credit ratio is to simply pay down those balances. But chances are if you’re in a lot of debt, you can’t pay off all the balances right away. (That’s how you got here in the first place, right?)"

[takeshi74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I had read extensively that credit utilization was a huge part of your scoring algo, and that paying anything down below 30% was a huge windfall.

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Revolving utilization does have a significant impact, however, it's not the only thing that factors into Amounts Owed and Amounts Owed is typically ~30%.

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

A significant drop from 63% to 3% should yield quite a bit of scoring improvement.  Bucketing may be at play.  It's not as common a topic but it has been discussed in past if you want to refer to prior threads.

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@Anonymous wrote:
That doesn't sit right with me. The SOLE purpose of paying for this product was realtime scoring updates.

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Make sure you understand anything you're buying.  myFICO is a trigger based service.  Not all activity with a scoring impact is a trigger.

http://myfico.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/463/~/understanding-what-triggers-fico%C2%AE-3-bureau-credit-monitoring-and-fico%C2%AE-identity

Not saying this is relevant to the lack of scoring update as that much of a balance change should be a trigger.  Just pointing out that myFICO is not necessarily realtime.

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@Anonymous wrote:

I could have just paid 6500.00 down on a new car since seeing no change in my score has ZERO residual benefit whatsoever. FICO = SCAM in my eyes.

Not understanding something, having issues, or not getting the expected results does not make something a scam in and of itself.

Your score is not all that matters.  Your overall financial health is more important.  You're better off without $6,500 in debt than you are with it.  That said, a balance change of that magnitude should have a beneficial scoring impact.  As I mentioned earlier, some find that they are stuck in a bucket for a bit of time and that they eventually get out of it and then see the scoring improvement.  Not sure if that's the case for you but it may be a possibility.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Why would my score change under the other scoring system then? It's a credit card. So paying off a balance should indeed reflect on my FICO score.

---

Different models use different scoring mechanics, there's no correlation between them at all unfortunately (unfortunately because it causes no end of consumer confusion).

FICO is calculated in 3 parts when it comes to revolving utilization:

1) Aggregate utilization

2) Individual tradeline utilization

3) number of tradelines with balances

Taking them in order, aggregate utilization, say for example you had 6K on a single card, and 100K in limits, paying it down by 5K in this case would take you from 6% to 1%: not enough to go over a breakpoint where the lowest is likely 10% or thereabouts from a long string of anecodtal reports over the past near decade.

Second one, I personally haven't found a breakpoint on individual utilization beneath the maxxed out limit which appears to be around 90% (could be 80, not sure why this number is still unknown frankly other than I haven't had time to really test it concretely); going from 6K to some small number (whatever it was) on a 10K line wouldn't be enough based on my data to cause the score to move.

Third, leaving a balance on a card that already has a balance wouldn't affect this part of the FICO algorithm.

As a result, while paying down a balance is never a bad thing financially nor from FICO's perspective (unless you pay everything off to $0, that's a negative) but unless you cross one of the thresholds on any of the three calculations, your score won't move.  

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I'm sticking withExperian's published definition of 90% for Max out. It's in-line with data I have seen posted.

[RobertEG]

"Real time" updates would require an inquiry on each credit file every minute or so.

That is not the reality of what the services offer.

[Anonymous]

Yes, perhaps my expectations were a bit high. However, some scoring updates did start trickling in, but the interface still lists the high UTI when indeed it is not. So some updated scoring occurred, but the correlating data did not propogate the tables. The projected scoring was nowhere near the proposed examples, the ones on Creditkarma were almost spot on. So, I am still in limbo somewhat. Thanks for the well intentioned and informative responses. Your time in doing so was much appreciated. I'll continue to monitor and see what the next cycle brings out.