Does the FICO score have a memory?

[Anonymous]

Your score in month 12 will not be the same  as in month 1. If, for no other reason, all your accounts have aged 1 year.

I believe (but can't prove it) FICO score does not have a memory. Your score is nonexistent - you don't have a score - until such time as you request a copy of your report and you pay for it. FICO calculates your score at the moment you pay for it. If you pay for your score at 10:00 AM Monday morning, that is your score as of 10:00 AM Monday morning. It is possible that if you pay for a score again at 2:00 PM on that same Monday, your score would be different.    

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@haulingthescoreup wrote:
I don't think that the motivation is to make people pay early, because believe me, no one is aware of this. I'll bet they would have found a way to get the word out if they wanted.

I worked out the interest once, and it was a couple of cents per account.

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Yes, a couple of cents for you, but a big chunk for the CCC, because they have more than only your account.

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I do understand that, but I don't mind if it helps their bottom line. It's not appreciably hurting mine, and it works for my in a lot of ways.

Paying early isn't for everyone, but it's not a ridiculous thing to do, or a puppet-like response to the CCC's and the CRA's. Certainly it has sharpened my attention toward my credit to a knife-point, and since my past problems resulted from carelessness, that's an improvement for me.

[Anonymous]

I was a denied a new CC due to my payment history over the past 6 months. At the time, my score was high and utility was very low, but I had just paid everthing off after carrying balances for sometime. So while it didn't affect my score, it did affect a decision to give me credit.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I was a denied a new CC due to my payment history over the past 6 months. At the time, my score was high and utility was very low, but I had just paid everthing off after carrying balances for sometime. So while it didn't affect my score, it did affect a decision to give me credit.

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Was that what was stated in the denial letter or is this your assumption?

[RobertEG]

I agree with Cian as to a manual review.  Once the current accout balance is updated by the OC and entered into the CR by the CRA, then FICO scoring is based only on the current %util of each reported account. It is thus a "current snapshot" only, once entered in the file.

However, your complete credit file does store prior monthly account balances for a period of time, so if a potential creditor does a manual review of your file, they may choose to consider more than just your current FICO score in making a credit decision. FICO score is not the end-all in creditor decisions.

[Anonymous]

I was denied a Citizen's Bank Mastercard, based on my payment history over the last 6 months (that was in the denial letter and the reason for denial). I'm sure they saw that I carried a high balance on all my cards for the last 6 months.