FICO SCORE SIMULATOR

Anonymous · ‎05-25-2010

A month ago I ran the FICO simulator which indicated that if I paid down my credit card balance by some amount my credit score would increase. After doing so and checking score with paid down balance no change. I ran FICO simulator again and this time it indicated score would not change with similar paydown. Did something change with simulator in the last month?

RobertEG · ‎05-25-2010

The problem with the FICO simulator is that it is primarily a one dimensional projection, and further limited by having no consideration of, or even way to, evaluate, FICO impacts in each of the five major scoring areas.. Things in your CR vary from month to month. Some accounts get older. Accounts are opened ande closed. New inquiries might be made. CLs and indivicual card utils may, and usually do, change.

It would be nice if FICO posted a score simulator that let you plug in multiple, expected changes in each FICO category, and see the overall affect. But, unfortunatley, this will never happen. The FICO scoring algorithm is a trade secret, and the more specific they get in their public simulator, the easier it makes for someone to reverse-engineer it, and thus destroy the whole proprietary business value of their product.

The FICO simullator is great for giving you hints on where to place your efforts, but not so great for precise predictions of future scores.

Anonymous · ‎05-26-2010

I paid my accounts from 4% utilization to 2%. They gave

me 1 pt on EQ and nothing on TU.

Estimator is broad range of 20 or 40 pts.

llecs · ‎05-26-2010

@Anonymous wrote:

A month ago I ran the FICO simulator which indicated that if I paid down my credit card balance by some amount my credit score would increase. After doing so and checking score with paid down balance no change. I ran FICO simulator again and this time it indicated score would not change with similar paydown. Did something change with simulator in the last month?

In what time frame did select (e.g. 1 month...2 yrs)? That makes a difference. I think the simulator accounts for the aging of the OC accounts.

Anonymous · ‎05-26-2010

@llecs wrote:
In what time frame did select (e.g. 1 month...2 yrs)? That makes a difference. I think the simulator accounts for the aging of the OC accounts.

For real? After playing around with it a ton, I gathered it didn't. Maybe I'll have to correct my thinking on that. This is what got me there:

For example, my last estimator says my best action is to pay down 90-100% of my cc balances over the next 24 months. I can gain 10-50 points by doing so. However, I can also gain 10-50 points by paying $2 over 12 months; or $4 over 6 months. (My cc balance was $25.)

I don't play around with it so much anymore - it's pretty vague. Told me my new mortgage would hit me with -25 to +5, it had no impact, so it was in the range - although not in the middle - if that's what anyone is expecting. It also told me a new account would hit me with -30 to 0, again no score change, so it was at the very edge of the range. The good news is I was expecting the worst of the ranges - and didn't get hit with them.

On a similar note: I love myfico.com/12. I tend to pull there more often. I think knowing the reason codes is an enormous help - you just have to be in the mood and know that you'll pull up the four reason codes (all reason codes are "negative") that your lenders will see. You have to give up the simulator, but I think the reason codes are infinitely more helpful.