I am not sure if this will be of any use to others but for the last seventeen months I have tracked my FICO 8 scores in an effort to quantify the effects of changes to my credit file. I have had three major changes to my file in the last thirty days unfortunately they hit very close together. However I am hopeful that the changes or lack there of in scores accurately reflect these events. I was however surprised by some of the results. The three events were Allinat CU I opened a Share secured loan for $500.00 I immediately paid it down to 8% utilization, second was a balance transfer to my Discover card from $0.00 to $4370.00 balance for a utilization change of 0% to 25% and 1% to 4% overall utilization. The link below has the spreadsheet that I used for the information
http://i.imgur.com/YtsZOpY.png
These are the dates and point changes reported with the alerts from MYFICO.
Alliant Secured Share Loan (Balance utilization 8%) occurred 6/17/16
Equifax 7/8/16 -3 point change
Experian 7/7/16 0 point change
TransUnion 7/7/16 0 point change
Discover Card (Balance increase from 0% to 25%) occurred 6/18/16
Equifax 7/13/16 -8 point change
Experian 7/9/16 0 point change
TransUnion 7/22/16 -5 point change
Nationwide Installment loan (30% utilization) occurred 6/21/16
Equifax 7/9/16 +25 point change
Experian 7/7/16 +13 point change
TransUnion 7/20/16 +17 point change
I was most surprised by the small decrease in scores after the balance transfer reported I had expected a 20 point or better drop. I had a total balances increase of $35.00 which caused a 4 point drop in the TransUnion score just a weak or so before the Discover balance transfer hit so the 0 to -8 pont change was unexpected. As a side note Vantage score took a 32 point drop on both Equifax and TransUnion when the transfer hit Credit Karma. I had hoped that the reporting of the closing for the Nationwide loan would occur prior to the Alliant loan reporting but I am assuming that the loss of a 30% utilization loan with the gain of an 8% loan is responsible for the total of point changes reflected in the Nationwide alerts. If I have learned anything from this it is that FICO treats each individual profile differently due to the numerous variences in every one. In my opinion the best we can hope for is that the collective data points and experiences of all who utilize this sub forum will at least give us some idea of what may happen when changes occur in our credit profiles.
