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“Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

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Anonymous
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“Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

Hello all.

For those that have read my other lengthy missives, and those that have given me over a dozen “kudos” too - and to those that have given me some really great advice... I really want to thank everyone for all your help here!! You guys/gals have really saved my credit score and also saved me a ton of cash! So my heartfelt thanks to all of you! Smiley Happy

Moving along... Today (well, 1-DEC) my scores shot up another 25+ pts on average solely b/c of the advice given here .... All that said - I’m on, or use, about a dozen different FICO and FAKO sites and apps and all my scores are within a few pts of each other now and I am a very happy camper having just broke 750+ mark last month too! Smiley Happy ... but based on a suggestion in another thread I did pull my “real” FICO8 reports from a suggested ‘quality vendor’, along with all my ‘real’ credit reports and thankfully for the most part those too all matched up as well. But also showed me where some cards or accounts were VERY slow in ‘reporting’ my data to the agencies (Grrrr!) and so now I’m learning which ones not to use and/or who to make sure I PIF immediately etc., so that my updates and positive data gets posted ASAP and doesn’t drag out when getting reported monthly.

Anyway - back to my reason for writing today (as I honestly thought I’d not have any more Q’s!) but guess you truly do learn something new every day aye!? Smiley Happy That said my Equifax score is about 7 pts below my TU score for some reason?? - So that then got me looking at various free “what if” simulator tools online within all these apps they offer - and ran this one scenario on Credit Sesame, Credit Karma and on one other I can’t recall right now, but when I do this on all three, my results are identical and my scores mysteriously all shoot up 41 points?!?! Huh!?

So here’s the deal. I have 16 cards now. About $59k in Credit. Am under 8% Util - I carry a very low balance across say 7 of those 16 cards just to show some activity and a solid payment history (as I’ve seen on my detailed reports, that with some “unused cards” sometimes those won’t report at all for a given month, thereby “skipping” a month of positive data!?) - Anyway - so I just got a $22k Discover It card with the 0% APR for 16 (or 18 months?). Not sure what the Balance Transfer fees are, but think it’s 3%? But here’s the question or quandary - when I run the 3 “simulators” and ONLY do one thing - shift all those 7 cards worth of open balances to just the one card (balance transfer) from 9.99%~19.99%APR depending on the age of the card - so let’s say I transfer that entire balance all to my 0% Discover card, I swear with all three simulators it says my score would go up 41 points???!!! Why is this? You’d think that they’d want to see you “exercising” tiny amounts of your credit across several lines, not just one, no? (Obviously not) But also - is it worth the 3% and hassle to do a balance transfer? Would you all recommend this? More importantly - Is this simulator point rise that they’re projecting real and accurate???? To be honest I’m tempted solely just because all these other cards report so sporadically, that if I dumped all these tiny balances all off onto the 0% APR Discover, then in theory I guess I’d only have one card or one account “reporting” each month, thereby giving me a more accurate and timely scores, yes? (goal is to buy a house here soon, so that’s another factor and why I wanna be very careful here not to cause or do anything stupid that’d lower my scores) - But on the other hand, I also do NOT want to risk having an account get closed for “non-use”, or a CL DECREASED because ‘XYZ card’ sits in my sock drawer and doesn’t get used enough - ya know?

What does the respected peanut gallery think? Should I do it? Worth it? Is the 3% worth it? (I guess that too is a “yes” b/c I’m already paying double digit interest on some of these older cards). Duh me. :-(

As always - thanks for wading thru my lengthy missive and appreciate any advice! I’m just having a hard time figuring out the “cause and effect” here and why ones’ score would rise by doing a balance transfer?!? Simply doesn’t make sense. Sigh.

Cheers!

BB Smiley Happy
Message 1 of 7
6 REPLIES 6
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

Look up ABCD's AZEO method on these forums and find his post and it will explain why your scores will go up. All zero except one. The fico scores are better for some reason when the balance is all on one card and uti below 30%  prefereably below 10% tbh. Anyway look that up and you will see why. Also simulators are not 100% so don't be dissatisfied if your scores dont go up as much as the simulator said it would. Also is it worth it? Thats for you to answer. Is it going to save you interest? Are you about to apply for a card, LOC, loan, or mortgage? If so then yea its worth it. If not then no I wouldn't bother. Up to you. Best of luck. 

Message 2 of 7
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

Sounds good. I’ll search for everything that you suggested - I outlined my concerns and goals in my post (but know it was a very long read). Ironically just after I posted all that, I found a similar article on NerdWallet and they blasted holes in going after any balance transfers. So I dunno? I gotta understand the mechanics behind it all first - Also found it strange that 3 totally different websites would give me the exact same “41 point” boost. Must be using the same “what if?” software, as they’re working with the same Vantage 3.0 scores to begin with.

Thanks!

B.B.
Message 3 of 7
Glen_M
Frequent Contributor

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

[long story]... More importantly - Is this simulator point rise that they’re projecting real and accurate???? ...

BB Smiley Happy

No.

 

The simulators are only capable of telling you the sort of things that would be obvious to you after spending some time reading threads here.  Their specific and short term predictions are often wildly innacurate.

 

eta: An example, the simulator has been telling me for a couple months that my TU score will jump by 100 points any day now -- what I've actually seen have been a few very small steady increases.  Half way through that period I saw a 60+point jump in my EQ score that the simulator failed to predict at all.



Message 4 of 7
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

Thanks everyone - I did a PIF on all my 'major cards' this month, and then had a Christmas purchase and an unusually high petrol (gas) bill last month (?), so moved that over to my zero balance, 5 figure 0%APR for 18 mo Discover card as the gas card has an insane APR% and despite not using it very much, was just tired of dealing with that one - But point is - I ran my exact figures ($2580 and change) thru all the 'simulators' again now that I know exactly what I balance transferred - and much to my surprise *this time* it dropped my score by -50 to -67 points??? HUH!?! WTH? So I'm hoping common sense and basic math will prevail in the end here, as now all my cards are either $0 zero bal, or anything that was even remotely close to 30% UTIL (starter cards from 2 years ago that had like only $300 CL on them) but one xmas trip to Walmart can put you over 30% - so moved a bunch of my older high APR% ones over to the fresh Discover card and now ALL my cards are below 8%-10%, if not 0% UTIL ... In theory, that should RAISE my score, no?! - So have no idea why these 'simulators' are now pulling a 180 degree flip on me? Scary... I think too that when I look at updates and their actual posting dates - some cards don't even 'update' for 2-3 months! So despite paying in full, here I am 3 month later, and it still says I'm carrying a BAL with XYZ card - That kinda sucks! - so those are going into the sock drawer too... Thanks for all the help, tips and advice - Fingers crossed come JAN 1 - everything will report properly this time and despite these crazy simulators, I'm thinking (in theory at least!?) that I should get a nice lil bump! Smiley Happy Happy Holidays - BB PS: A SMB loan guy wanted my credit score today, so he sent me off to yet another one of these "soft pull" for a $1 places (for a business loan so totally unrelated) - and so I did that and he's now processing my company line of credit request (over $300k - so everyone say a prayer lol) - but as I was resetting my password b/c he'd gotten a copy of what he needed and want him out now - I saw yet another "simulator" - sigh - (You'd think I'd learn aye?) - So their #1 "what if scenario" was "Simulate your score if you ________________ "Pay off ALL your bills on time for 36 months" - Well, since that's like 30%-35% of your score, that's gotta be worth something huge right? (plus if you ever are late - lord have mercy - what is it? like a 60pt drop/hit?) so I just ticked the 36 month box to 'pay everything on time' and it whirled and clicked and spun and went from 752 to (drum roll please!) 753! LOL - 1 lousy point for paying off all your cards on time for 3 yrs?? So you know those things just gotta be rigged!!
Message 5 of 7
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

As per the other advice you have gotten:

 

* Ignore what all simulators tell you (including the one at myFICO)

 

* Pay all credit cards except one to zero (All Zero Except One = AZEO)

 

* Make sure your total CC utilization is < 8.99%.  If the remaining card in your AZEO approach has a balance of $20 or so, you will necessarily have a very low utilization.

 

When your reports show the new balances on all cards, your scores will go up.  Until then have a happy Christmas and forget about your scores.

 

PS.  Encouraging and uncritical suggestion: welcome to the community and keep posting, but also consider preparing your post in a word processor first, with an eye to separating your thoughts into clear bullets or paragraphs.  The huge wall of text is hard for people to make sense out of and far fewer will read through it, compared with placing you thoughts in paragraphs.

 

Message 6 of 7
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: “Simulator” vs. reality? Why and what to do?!

Thanks and apologies for my lengthy missives.... FYI, I DO “break my subjects apart” with paragraphs, but for some reason (probably my iPhone formatting) it will then clump everything back into one huge run-on sentence Smiley Sad Sorry.


That aside... my balance transfer just posted on 2 sites this a.m. and my scores SKYROCKETED!!! Phew! (Not “simulator high”, but within 3-5 pts!) As in essence I’ve just lowered everything to $0 now, or the few with balances are below 5-8%

So glad it worked. It also just put me into the “god category” (my loan officers terminology, not mine) but that then just shaved even more pts of my Mortgage! Woohoo. Bloody excellent!

Couldn’t have done it without the help from everyone here. Thanks!!!

Cheers

BB
Message 7 of 7
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