@BeansandRice wrote:Totally feel your pain Felicity17. Checked my score and CR last week and was a 649. Got an alert about the change in scoring and now it is a 586!!! Feeling totally crushed. Acquired a new car loan last year and paid on time since. Watched my score steadily rise until this change. And I was just about to apply for a USDA home loan. I don't have any credit cards. I guess it's time to get one and hope for a bump. Unless any of you board veterans think it's a bad idea?
Well, to be fair most mortgages underwrite on the older FICO '04 version that was previously sold here, so that drop is likely irrelevant from that perspective.
When were you thinking mortgage? If we're talking a few weeks, go apply for it now and see what the older scores were... if it comes up short, open up a credit card and cross fingers. It appears as though FICO '08 has a much higher weight on having revolving tradelines than the older models did. If you're looking at the USDA loan in six months or whatever (probably even 3 months in the no-revolving tradeline situation, should be a trivial LFE to write if the underwriters ask for it), then get a card now would be my recommendation.
Do check the report closely and see if there's anything else that's off in it compared to the last one, otherwise go for it.
@Anonymous wrote:OMG I am going thru the same thing! My score went from 675 to 615 in a matter of 20 days??? I have no delinquencies, no collections, no credit cards, and have worked so hard to get my credit on track. What am I doing wrong???
Welcome to the forums!
Two questions: first where are you getting your scores, and second, do you have a before and after report.... well that leads to a third, if you have the reports, take a look to see if there's any changes (new derogatories, new tradelines, change in balances, etc, unfortunately it's a complicated algorithm and it all matters).
I'll be the first to admit there's some black art in FICO scoring from a consumer perspective because we don't know all the details, but typically if a before and after picture is known we can likely pull something relevant out of it.
+1. Definately fine tooth your EQ report if you have a before and after. My score dropped 17pts. At first glance I couldn't figure out why. Then I took a longer look (should've seen this to begin with) but they dropped almost 20yrs of positive account history, lowering my AAoA. Once I had them add the positive accounts back, the points came with it, exact amount lost.
I recently obtained a $317,000 mortgage this March but nothing else new??? Is this hurting my score since I don't have any credit cards to balance things out? I DEF won't qualify for a credit card now with a score of 615... 
Thanks for replying, I got that score from my ScoreWatch subscription. I will log in now to view all thre
@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:OMG I am going thru the same thing! My score went from 675 to 615 in a matter of 20 days??? I have no delinquencies, no collections, no credit cards, and have worked so hard to get my credit on track. What am I doing wrong???
Welcome to the forums!
Two questions: first where are you getting your scores, and second, do you have a before and after report.... well that leads to a third, if you have the reports, take a look to see if there's any changes (new derogatories, new tradelines, change in balances, etc, unfortunately it's a complicated algorithm and it all matters).
I'll be the first to admit there's some black art in FICO scoring from a consumer perspective because we don't know all the details, but typically if a before and after picture is known we can likely pull something relevant out of it.
Thanks for replying, I got that score from my ScoreWatch subscription. I will log in now to view all three scores but nothing has.changed from the last report I received.
P.S. I am SO glad I discovered this forum, everyone is so helpful and informative
@Anonymous wrote:I recently obtained a $317,000 mortgage this March but nothing else new??? Is this hurting my score since I don't have any credit cards to balance things out? I DEF won't qualify for a credit card now with a score of 615...
Sounds like you got converted and missed the memo (or more likely FICO didn't send you one).
The new version FICO '08 penalizes people without revolving tradelines HARSHLY (to the tune of 50-100 points in all reported cases I've seen). If this applies to you as it sounds like it does, open a pair of small credit cards. Go check the pre-qual for Capital One and see if you qualify for an unsecured card, if not what I'd do is open up a $300 BOFA secured card (which is by far the best starter card for a lot of reasons) and then likely a $250 one at SDFCU or $99 from Cap One (no AF on the SDFCU one) and just get the tradelines on your report as you'll get a straight boost now and your score will likely be back up to what it was previously within a year or perhaps even six months.
We don't have a lot of experience with FICO '08 and people without credit cards: the heavy social people tend to wind up hanging out in CC's anyway so have plenty of cards, and we only just got the transition for Scorewatch which has brought a lot of SW subscribers out complaining about the change with large drops, and many of them have little to no open revolving tradelines.
Easy yet annoying to fix, open up a couple of silly credit cards, use them sporadically (or maybe for everything like I did after my cash-based existance) and go on with life. I think it's a little awkward, but we're slaves to the algorithm on some things.
ETA: I've always suggested that people have a solid mix of tradelines between revolving and installment ones, usually that advice was given to people with credit cards and no installment history, but it's come home hard for people who didn't have credit cards with this transition.
I got the email and a scorewatch alert this week. I lost 32 points on EQ...I also don't have any revolving accounts. I just got my first statement from my new Capital One secured card. I hope they start reporting soon and I hope it helps!
Starting Score: 3/2014 - TU FICO 566, EQ FICO 569, EX FICO 563
@tld1104 wrote:I got the email and a scorewatch alert this week. I lost 32 points on EQ...I also don't have any revolving accounts. I just got my first statement from my new Capital One secured card. I hope they start reporting soon and I hope it helps!
IF you would, would you let us know what the score change is when it does start reporting? Would be greatly appreciated!