EQ FICO has me baffled!!!

[haulingthescoreup]

OK, I'm not trying to keep an argument going (I'm really not), but I've been digging on this, and unfortunately, the info that you were given was incorrect.

"Number of established accounts" refers to open AND closed accounts, not just open. And this is true across all three credit reports for #28. It does seem counter-intuitive, but again, these factors emerge after statistical analysis of historical consumer credit data.

I personally think it's pretty archaic. Since by nature, these statistical samples are historical, I don't think that this takes into account the explosion of credit use within the last decade or so, with the popularity of rewards cards and so forth. It's particularly brutal on those with student loans that have not yet been consolidated, as you typically have a new SL account every semester. Someone who went for a PhD could well have 18 or more separate SL accounts, until they begin consolidating loans.

The ding for "too many accounts" is not that big. For anyone getting this one, do NOT start trying to get healthy closed accounts to stop reporting. The benefits of old, clean history far outweigh any scoring loss from the so-called too many accounts bit. Time will take care of this, anyway, as the old closed stuff starts falling off. Just don't go bananas now. App wisely for accounts that will be of genuine use, and don't sweat this one. The formula's not happy unless it can carp at you about something.

[Anonymous]

The "too many credit accounts" definitely refers to both open and closed accounts.  My husband's November 2008 report on myfico for TU was 696 and stated he had "too many credit accounts" and said "21" for the number he had.  The only way we can get to 21 accounts is if we count all of our old mortgages (closed due to refis) and old credit cards that have been closed for years.  In actuality, he has 12 open accounts. 

We know we are losing points for both too many accounts with balances (12) and "heavy use of your available revolving credit".  Part of the accounts with balances issue is things that get paid off every month, but not before they are reported.  (I'm going to try paying before account posting dates from now on & see if I can get that number down.)  We're working on the revolving credit, but a large portion of our income comes from my real estate career & it's no secret what that's been like lately, so we do what we can.

On the positive side of things, we have no missed payments at all, no inquiries and an established credit history (oldest account 15 yrs 5 mos & AAoA 8 years).  Those ages are from last November, so we can add a year onto them now, but my most recent TU report for my husband was directly from TU so it didn't have a score or the commentary.

My question is in contrast to what haulingthescore up said about asking for old closed accounts to be removed.  I'm really thinking I should have 3-4 of them removed to see what happens.  Yes, several of them were opened almost as long ago as our oldest accounts, but we have other credit that old or older as well.  It will definitely not impact our oldest account & I'm not quite sure how much it will affect our AAoA.  Many of these accounts have date of last activity over 7 years ago.  I'd love input from anyone else!

Thank you so much!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The "too many credit accounts" definitely refers to both open and closed accounts.  My husband's November 2008 report on myfico for TU was 696 and stated he had "too many credit accounts" and said "21" for the number he had.  The only way we can get to 21 accounts is if we count all of our old mortgages (closed due to refis) and old credit cards that have been closed for years.  In actuality, he has 12 open accounts. 

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Crazy!  I have 21 accounts (8 open) and didn't get that hit on my mortgage pull.  Oh, well.  Crazier and crazier.

According to some experts, ten is about the maximum number of open accounts if you're shooting for an 800 score.  That fits here - your DH got the hit with 12 open accounts; I didn't get the hit with 8 - even though we both had 21 total accounts.  Go figure! 

My vote is still to keep the number of open accounts down - it can't hurt and there's some evidence that it may help.