SImulator questions

[Anonymous]

How close to accurate is the simulator?  I understand its just a guess, but I was curious.  Also, since it can't do cumulative actions (pay down AND be on time), if you "add" the increases together, is that accurate, or does it not work that way?

Example: It says if we don't pay down balances, but stay current on all payments for one year, we can increase our score 100 to 120 points.  If we pay off the account listed as "delinquent", it shows a 50 point increase.  Paying off some other debt shows a 10 to 15 point increase. 

So, if we pay off the one account, pay down other debt, AND stay current for a year, could we expect our score of 513 to increase to the  620 to 680 range??

[Anonymous]

You can't add the different changes together.

I have found the simulator to be fairly accurate, as long as everything else on your report stays the same.

For example, it say to expect up to a 40 point increase for paying down my util. My util was the ONLY thing that changed(including dates) and I got nearly a 40 point increase.

This is what it says at the bottom of the simulator:

The results of the Simulator are intended to approximate the impact of various actions on your FICO^® score – if everything else stayed the same. Your actual score, and the results of any particular action, are the result of a complex interaction of the information stored in your credit report, some of which changes on a daily basis. The Simulator is provided for informational purposes only and should not be expected to provide accurate predictions in all situations.

Please note that the results of different simulations are not necessarily cumulative. In other words, taking two separate actions, each of which could raise your FICO^® score by 20 points, will probably not mean that your FICO^® score will go up by 40 points.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:

You can't add the different changes together.

I have found the simulator to be fairly accurate, as long as everything else on your report stays the same.

For example, it say to expect up to a 40 point increase for paying down my util. My util was the ONLY thing that changed(including dates) and I got nearly a 40 point increase.

This is what it says at the bottom of the simulator:

The results of the Simulator are intended to approximate the impact of various actions on your FICO® score – if everything else stayed the same. Your actual score, and the results of any particular action, are the result of a complex interaction of the information stored in your credit report, some of which changes on a daily basis. The Simulator is provided for informational purposes only and should not be expected to provide accurate predictions in all situations.

Please note that the results of different simulations are not necessarily cumulative. In other words, taking two separate actions, each of which could raise your FICO® score by 20 points, will probably not mean that your FICO® score will go up by 40 points.

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Note that the FICO score Estimator at http://www.bankrate.com/brm/fico/calc.asp is an interesting alternative.  Unlike the simulator it relies only on data you provide since it is not based off an actual report.  So it's a little less specific.  However, it does allow for testing some possibilities that cannot easily be tried on the Simulator, such as combinations of factors.

[haulingthescoreup]

The Estimator is also available from this site.

http://www.myfico.com/FICOCreditScoreEstimator/Estimator.aspx

[Anonymous]

The good thing about both links above is that they are both "powered by" MyFICO....so the results are identical.

[MattH]

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@Anonymous wrote:
The good thing about both links above is that they are both "powered by" MyFICO....so the results are identical.

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Indeed, and they come pretty close to my actual scores.  Clearly there must exist some type of business relationship between MyFico and BankRate because each website has long contained numerous links to the other.  For instance just now when I logged into http://www.myfico.com/Products/Products.aspx right next to the MyFico logo at the top was a BankRate logo.  Oddly enough, I have noticed that BankRate logo comes and goes randomly -- I see it about half the time when I go there.