Cc limit

[core]

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@kdong1996 wrote:
A 50 year old who has established credit for 32 yrs will always have a lower score than the younger "kid" if they both have low AAoA

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And therein lies the problem.  Even if you do have 32 years of credit history it likely won't look that way on paper.  Amex backdating issues aside, who the heck keeps an annual-fee-charging, non-rewards-paying credit card open for 32 years?   (Besides FICO junkies.)  Also not everyone stretches a mortgage out that long...  I liked the 7 year plan better.

So you can pay all your bills on time like clockwork, do all the right things, play games with share-secured installment loans you don't need, but your score will be lower than someone who just got a card last year that can't necessarily be trusted yet.  It makes little sense to me.

[SunriseEarth]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am a 55 yo woman with pretty good work habit.  Majorly upset,   I let my cap one Sony card get really high because of a 6 week hiatus from work.  My fico took a 23 point drop.  Not at all happy. Also how do all these college kids get such high limits on their card when they are in school?  And several of them have many cards.

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When you increase your UTIL of a card, scores often drop, espcially depending on how much you've increased.   UTIL is the second most important factor in FICO scoring, behind payment history.   If you have a card with a high UTIL, you appear to be more of a risk in FICO terms.  However, scores are just a snapshot of your file at a certain time.   Once you pay down your balance, scores will rebound.  

As for "these college kids," it's hard to say without knowledge of their profiles or yours.   Many lenders don't mind someone with a short but clean profile, especially if they have a good income.   

[SunriseEarth]

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@core wrote:

What I don't understand is how these "kids" get 760-780 FICO scores with 6mos to 1 year of history, when a 50 year old person with no baddies might spend decades and barely reach those scores.  And then these same kids whine about not getting CLIs after 3 months of having a card when their credit history is so "long".  Puh-leeze.

Actually I do understand why.  It's because of bucketing.  But it just seems bass ackwards to me.

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It might bear mentioning that people who come to myFICO are generally interested in achieving good credit.   The "kids" who post aren't necessarily representative of their peers, bur are often those actively interested in credit and score improvement.  With a clean history and a lot of knowledge, it's not too difficult to get into 760+ scores.   The 50 year old person might have a great payment history, but might have high UTIL (or even 0% UTIL, which isn't optimal).   Payment history is 35% of the score, but there's still the other 65% to contend with.  

[NRB525]

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@core wrote:

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@kdong1996 wrote:
A 50 year old who has established credit for 32 yrs will always have a lower score than the younger "kid" if they both have low AAoA

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And therein lies the problem.  Even if you do have 32 years of credit history it likely won't look that way on paper.  Amex backdating issues aside, who the heck keeps an annual-fee-charging, non-rewards-paying credit card open for 32 years?   (Besides FICO junkies.)  Also not everyone stretches a mortgage out that long...  I liked the 7 year plan better.

So you can pay all your bills on time like clockwork, do all the right things, play games with share-secured installment loans you don't need, but your score will be lower than someone who just got a card last year that can't necessarily be trusted yet.  It makes little sense to me.

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More time in the credit world is not necessarily a good thing. Many of those longer histories include a lot of bad credit events, and those are no longer a clean file. Most people get credit to use credit, which means they have utilization amounts, sometimes very significant utilization percentages. The population posting to MyFICO tends to skew toward those who want to optimize their score, and that means tending to lower utilization, once they understand how the game is played.

And if you pay your bills on time like clockwork, and have a long history, it makes for a very stable score, within a range controlled by the other factors: Utilization, mix of open credit products, recent INQ or new accounts, etc.

[Gunnar419]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am a 55 yo woman with pretty good work habit.  Majorly upset,   I let my cap one Sony card get really high because of a 6 week hiatus from work.  My fico took a 23 point drop.  Not at all happy. Also how do all these college kids get such high limits on their card when they are in school?  And several of them have many cards.

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Two different issues.

First of all, your score will rise again once your util goes down. No long term problem at all.

Second, you don't know the full profiles of those "college kids" and in any case their credit doesn't affect you. For your own happiness, don't go around sounding like some cranky old person griping about "these kids today."