Effect of Job Loss on FICO

[Anonymous]

I have been sitting at 814 EQ and 803 TU for awhile.   Like many others I experienced a job loss (it was temporary) in march and sddenly I slid to *11 and 788.   Nothing elae seems to have changed except taht my Mortgage debt continues to decline and my accounts are all a bil older.

I never thought aht employment status or length of time in job mattered but this makes me wonder.   Any thoughts?

[RobertEG]

FICO does not score income or employment status.

[Jazzzy]

Hi geronimo,

Neither job nor income affects your FICO score.

Did you show any credit card balances? It seems that something must have changed other than just your job.

[Anonymous]

My credit card balance is within the range it has been during the time I was "stuck" as noted above.  It is curious to me.  Not sure what happened.

[MarineVietVet]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My credit card balance is within the range it has been during the time I was "stuck" as noted above.  It is curious to me.  Not sure what happened.

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What was the utilization on your cards before and after the score change?

From a BK years ago to:
8/09 TU-765 EQ- 783
9/09 EX pulled by lender 802
3/10 EQ- 800

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[Jazzzy]

Have you read anything in the forums about rebucketing? That could be what you are dealing with.

That is where you reach a level that FICO believes puts you into a "higher" category of credit consumer. They put you in with that new group. It can be based on hitting a longer history or a higher average age of accounts. It can be based on many factors. It often drops your scores for a while because you are being compared to credit consumers with higher scores than you used to be. It's frustrating when that happens, but your score will recover, and...in the end...you can ususally reach a higher level. It is sort of the one-step-back-two-steps-forward scenario. You need to eventually get rebucketed in order to grow your score (although your scores were already great).

FICO does not know when you've lost a job.

[Anonymous]

The balances on the one card that hasa balance is within the same range it has been therefore utilization is the same.

It could be rebuceting but I am curious as to what may have caused it.  But it looks like we will not be able to figure this out on our own.

[Jazzzy]

Yeah...there is no way to know for sure.

Rebucketing often happens for good reasons though. It means you've worked your way up to another level.

Think positively!

[Anonymous]

I have always been alittle skeptical about the whole concept of rebucketing.   It may very well be legitimate but it seems to be the "go to" answer whenever folks are stumped.    Well it is what it is.  It sure did cause my TU score to sink and knocked me out of the 800 club but c'est la vie.

[Anonymous]

I normally don't pay much attention to the FICO simulators here or elsewhere   but I did notice something today.  In the past both TU and EQ seemed to treat my HELOC as a mortgage.  Now the TU simulator seems to include it in revolving credit.   That could be the reason for the dairly pronounced change in that score.  The EQ change is far less dramatic and that one stilkl counts it as a mortgage (or at least it is not in the revolving total).