Am I kidding myself with expectation that there is a rational trend in FICO scoring

[Anonymous]

Trying to maintain good score for new auto financing in 90 to 120 days. But whenever I do something that I think is right, it's wrong. The following happened within seven days.

TU score 771 with 1 negative--too many cc (47 with over 35 year credit history) and 4 positives--no serious delinquency, 7% utilization, 35 year established history with 9 year average, and only one 30-day late that was 4 years and 1 month ago. Three cc listed with balances of $11K left on 0% for 20 month purchase; $5,000 on AMEX; and $300 on MC. There is a mortgage and HELOC and 3 installment loans.

Since AMEX was paid off in Sept after date of report to TU, I recently wrote to dispute that balance should be $0. They investigated and wrote back in under a week that dispute was resolved and I checked to see that balance was now $0.

Although not necessary, waited a few days to check my TU score figuring that this change would help, but instead lost 19 points and currently TU score is 753. Have 2 negatives now--no balances since not using credit and too many cc and 3 positives with low utilization disappearing--no serious delinquency, established history, and most recent 30-day late that was 4 years and 1 month ago. Account listing now shows two cc, the $11K balance and $300 MC. The mortgage and HELOC and 3 installment loans are still there with identical balances.

So I can't figure out why TU score now thinks I have no revolving debt when I still have two cc listed on same report. Moreover how can an additional balance on a third card give me a higher score with everything else the same. I had figured that correction would have change utilization from 7% to 5%.

Funny thing is that my EQ score increased when AMEX balance became $0 along with other cards paid off (EQ does not get $11K balance report).

[vanillabean]

In a situation like this it can be useful to disregard for a moment any expectations that you may have and map out what builds up the overall util.

For each of your open credit card accounts as listed on a current credit report, what are the reported monthly balance (even if $0) and the reported credit limit (even if $0)?

[GregB]

Are you sure that is a TU FICO? What is the source?

I had almost as many CC reporting and can't find any record of a negative for that on an actual FICO report. I did get negative info on "too many accounts" from other scoring systems.

If that is a TU FICO, that is good enough to get the best rate on any auto financing IF they are using TU. How does your EQ FICO look?

[haulingthescoreup]

I agree. I've seen the flag on the credit-at-a-glance page, but I haven't seen an actual negative for too many CC's. It could be there, though. OP, can you screenshot the screen with the positive and negative factors and post it here?

As for the thread title, I feel your pain. Do remember that FICO scoring isn't some sort of plan dreamed up by someone, like a technique of toilet training your 2-year-old. It's a formula derived from statistics that is meant to predict the risk of a consumer defaulting on credit. They looked at many, many credit report, tagged various items (revolving util, presence of a BK, presence of an open installment loan, and on and on) and then looked to see how often the factor appeared on reports with defaults. It's a predictive formula (or the developers feel that it is, anyway.) So there are things that happen in FICO-land that seem very irrational, just according to what their stats dug up.

(And I hate stats. I hate it so much that I had to take it twice. )

[Anonymous]

Agree. Your case seems highly unusual. It would be useful to precisely itemize the utilization and CL on each card. But I can't imagine how reducing one of three balances to 0 can decrease your score.

Is anything else under dispute? IME, TU reports can be erratic when any account is under dispute.

Is it possible that the two other CCs do not have CLs? If so, they will not count towards utilization. If you are using this site for the score report, how many accounts does it list with a balance? How many did it list before you zeroed that card?

[Anonymous]

Yes, these are true TU FICO scores that I pulled from this site. As I stated in original post the EQ FICO from this post on same dates is 771.

I'm not so much worried about getting a good loan rate with this score, as opposed to showing the vagaries of the system and wondering why so inconsistent.

If it my surmise that reasons given hurting and helping score are somewhat random depending on what your score is. The fact being that if I low utilization of 7% on day helps score and if I reduce balances to lower utilization to a lower percentage that is no longer listed as helping score. But listing to show no usage of credit shows as hurting score.

Go figure.

[Anonymous]

I really can't figure out how first TU score gets 7% usage based on review on all ccs. My calculation is about 11% based on $17K balances on $160K cl for credit cards where all but 3 have a $0 balance and most of those haven't been active in years, but weren't closed.

Nevertheless for the three cc where I do have a positive balance the total credit line is $80K ($11,280 usage of 38,000;$5,674 usage of 12,200; and $274 usage of 30,000) initially and then after dispute remove 5,674 associated with the 12,200 credit line, the other two are the same and they are still listed as cc even reasons hurting say that I have $0 of cc. My issue is the internal inconsistency.

[Anonymous]

I would love to show a screen shot of details but get my shots to copy in this window. I've seen your posts with screen shots so if would you provide some more detailed help on how I can do this I will share screens with personal info redacted. For some reason I can't figure out how to copy screen shot that is in my work document over to his post a message screen.

My reason for sharing is that my results lead me to believe that hurts & helps summary is unreliable at best.

I do understand the concept behind FICO and I'm a mathematician. Therefore,I feel if you control for all other factors as I did by checking score before submitting dispute for the one item to correct AMEX balance, waiting for TU to notify me that they had resolved dispute, going to TU site to confirm on credit report that AMEX balance was $0, and then just for curiosity because it wasn't necessary signing onto myFICO account and paying for another score only to find an decrease in my score, that is not irrational IHMO, that is a bug in the formula.

Once I learn how to get my screen shots onto to forum, I will be happy to post pages before and after of hurting and helping screens as well as the credit at a glance summary.

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I would love to show a screen shot of details but get my shots to copy in this window. I've seen your posts with screen shots so if would you provide some more detailed help on how I can do this I will share screens with personal info redacted. For some reason I can't figure out how to copy screen shot that is in my work document over to his post a message screen.

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Here's the easiest way (I use Windows so I don't know how any of this will play in):

1) Do a screenshot. On my keyboard I hit the "Print Screen" button.

2) Open a program like MS Paint or some other graphics program.

3) Right click on the mouse and click "Paste". The screen shot from a few seconds ago will appear.

4) I crop it to make it smaller (I use the rectangle tool...the one with the dashed lines, and expand it to the area that I want cropped. I then go into "Image" then select "Crop"...based on MS Paint)

5) Be sure to edit out any identifying info like your name, account numbers, etc.

6) Save the picture.

7) Start or respond to a myFICO post.

8) Click the tree icon (below Font Size and letter color).

9) Inserting a picture defaults to "From My Computer". Click "Browse". Click on the file you just saved and click "Open".

10) A preview of that picture will appear and then click "Insert Image" when done.

The above is my non-technical analysis. Maybe there's a better way to do it.

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I really can't figure out how first TU score gets 7% usage based on review on all ccs. My calculation is about 11% based on $17K balances on $160K cl for credit cards where all but 3 have a $0 balance and most of those haven't been active in years, but weren't closed.

Nevertheless for the three cc where I do have a positive balance the total credit line is $80K ($11,280 usage of 38,000;$5,674 usage of 12,200; and $274 usage of 30,000) initially and then after dispute remove 5,674 associated with the 12,200 credit line, the other two are the same and they are still listed as cc even reasons hurting say that I have $0 of cc. My issue is the internal inconsistency.

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Couple of things may be in play...

Depending on the HELOC limit, it could be factored into utilization.

Make sure the dispute comment in the Amex TL is completely removed. Disputed TLs remove the balance and CL from scoring. So, the Amex's high balance and balance were removed during the dispute and could have thrown off your util and possibly the number of TLs carrying a $0 balance in relation to those that do which can also impact your FICO score. Ideally, you wouldn't want to dispute it but let it update on its own. Some CCCs opt to delete the entire TL under a dispute.