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I pulled all three reports a few months ago and was surprised to find that while EX and EQ show a single 30 day late on my Amex, it does not show on TU. Over the last four months, I've had a variety of activity including a couple of CLIs, 2 new cards, a car loan, inquiries, and a BT to one of the new cards. I've been watching my FICO8s during that time, and my EQ score has not moved a single point, it is constant at 780. EX has varied by two points, staying between 779 and 781, so almost exactly the same as EQ. My TU score has ranged between 787 and 811 during that time, moving pretty much exactly as expected. It's gone up when overall UTI went below 8.9% from around 11%, when individual cards dropped below thresholds, and when cards reported zero balances. It's gone down when the new cards reported and reset the AoYA, when the BT balance reported on a new card, and when cards that had been zero reported a balance.
Maybe someone else has another explanation, but it seems that single old late has set a pretty solid limit at around 780 on my EX and EQ scores, while my TU score responds "normally" to activity.
General info is overall UTI now below 8.9%, 2 cards at around 25%, one at 12%, and the rest PIF or way below 8.9.
I've seen 3-4 reports in the last 6 months or so on this forum from members referencing the score gain they realized when a lone aged 30 day late fell off their reports. The average of all of them was about 35 points gained, I want to say with a +/- 5-7 point variance reported from that average.
@Anonymous wrote:
Yes you're losing points with the late but look at your reports...
Is your AAOA, AoOA, inquiries etc pretty much the same or different? That is a factor as well.
Yes, about the only other differences are that my Marcus loan only shows up on TU and slightly differing number of inquiries.
@Anonymous wrote:I've seen 3-4 reports in the last 6 months or so on this forum from members referencing the score gain they realized when a lone aged 30 day late fell off their reports. The average of all of them was about 35 points gained, I want to say with a +/- 5-7 point variance reported from that average.
From what I can tell, the late is not costing me a certain number of points, it's just limiting my max score. I looked back further and before my scores hit 780, all three were typically within 15 points of each other with TU mostly being the lowest, and all pretty much went up and down together based on factors that would be expected to have those effects. It will be a year or so before they drop off, but my guess is that EQ and EX will jump to somewhere closer to the TU, which could be anywhere from 10-40 points depending where TU is at the time.
I somewhat doubt that 780's the top of the 30D late scorecard(s).
New accounts matter on the top 8 scorecards that a 30D late segments into (assuming nothing worse is on the file), so if you've beaten up your file lately that'll matter. Also we did get one old report of a 90D late with a higher score and while it was an outlier I'm not sure it's a bad one.
Installment utilization will also depress FICO 8 if yours isn't <8.9%.

@Revelate wrote:I somewhat doubt that 780's the top of the 30D late scorecard(s).
New accounts matter on the top 8 scorecards that a 30D late segments into (assuming nothing worse is on the file), so if you've beaten up your file lately that'll matter. Also we did get one old report of a 90D late with a higher score and while it was an outlier I'm not sure it's a bad one.
Installment utilization will also depress FICO 8 if yours isn't <8.9%.
This sort of question just jumped on to my radar as of late as well.
I had an old serious delinquincy (90+ late) age off as of last month. There's still a 6.5 year old 30 day late on my report that won't age off until November.
When the 90+ aged off, my score moved from 760ish to 780ish. Honestly, I expected it to go a little higher given the rest of my profile seems good enough (AAoA is almost 10 years, 1% util on revolving debt, all installment loans under 70% util, 1 inquiry). The blemishes would be that I do not AZEO and my newest account is just under 1 year old, but I also doubt they're factoring for 50-70 points by themselves, either.
From what I can tell, the only thing keeping my score under 800 is the 30-day late on there. Granted it's a single data point, but I'm starting to think that 30 day is holding me down to the 780s.

@Revelate wrote:I somewhat doubt that 780's the top of the 30D late scorecard(s).
Installment utilization will also depress FICO 8 if yours isn't <8.9%.
Sorry for any confusion, I certainly didn't mean to imply that I thought 780 was a hard cap for everybody with a 30 day late still reporting. I've read and posted in threads where people with one on their report had scores over 800 so I know it is possible. My other negative factors are recent new credit, owing over 90% on my mortgage, and installment loans at 87%, 55%, and 41% of loan amount. There are no other lates, COs, or other real derogs.
My point was that those lates on the two reports seem to have caused those two scores to hit a limit where credit card and car loan activity has no effect, while on TU my score moves as expected from activity on my accounts.