Crazy myFICO credit alerts "The balance on one of your accounts has increased by 18700% "

[jamesdwi]

It was a crazy alert, quite shocking, but "Math." Really it was a whole lot of nothing. No score change. No real impact on my overall UTL. 

Previous balance on the card, $1.  New Balance $187. Card has a $10,000 limit. 

[Anonymous]

The alert wasn't quite right.  Your balance increased 18600%, not 18700%.

People complain about this kind of alert all the time here.  A more user-friendly alert would probably be a raw dollar value.  I.e. in your case "Your balance increased $186."

[Anonymous]

The important thing here is that the alert has absolutely zero impact on your score. 

I'd really like it if MF or any other CMS would find a way to incorporate this into their product, because it's a daily thread occurance on this forum where people are wrongly chasing incorrect reasons for their score changes due to alerts.  I know this isn't the case here with the OP, but something worth mentioning.  Had the OP or anyone else received such an alert that their balance increased by a 5-figure percentage and for some other reason at the same time their score dropped 10-20 points, all we would hear about is that a balance change from 1%-2% (in this example) caused a significant score drop.

[HeavenOhio]

I just scanned through my alerts. They're all for dollar amounts. There's nothing indicating a balance change in terms of percentage.

As everyone who's posted to this thread understands, an alert like the OP mentions would have nothing to do with scoring. My guess is that its purpose is fraud or identity protection.

[Revelate]

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

I just scanned through my alerts. They're all for dollar amounts. There's nothing indicating a balance change in terms of percentage.

As everyone who's posted to this thread understands, an alert like the OP mentions would have nothing to do with scoring. My guess is that its purpose is fraud or identity protection.

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TU is dollar amounts.

I forget which of the other two sometimes do percentages, I've had both in the myFICO product over the years.

[iv]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@HeavenOhio wrote:

I just scanned through my alerts. They're all for dollar amounts. There's nothing indicating a balance change in terms of percentage.

As everyone who's posted to this thread understands, an alert like the OP mentions would have nothing to do with scoring. My guess is that its purpose is fraud or identity protection.

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TU is dollar amounts.

I forget which of the other two sometimes do percentages, I've had both in the myFICO product over the years.

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Equifax shows both the dollar amounts and the percentages (doubled alerts...) When going from $0 to any positive number, it's hard-coded to display 100%... but when starting from $1, the displayed percentages do get a little silly-looking.

[FireMedic1]

Just scrolled back a year on alerts. EQ is the only one that list both dollar amounts and % separately. The rest is just $ amounts. This was 1 account thats the AZEO card.