FICO from Discover card shows radically different credit card balances and total credit numbers!

[glaucus]

I am amazed that the late payments still have such a large negative effect after over 5 years. Why am I always reading about how the negative effects diminish over time? According to my report, I have only one card with late payments, but they range from 90 to 120 days late. This was from May 2011 through May 2012. Any way to estimate how much this is hurting my score? Discover FICO has me at 705. My total cc debt is now 26K, which they show as being 49% of my utilization. If I pay down the cc debt to 30% I would expect the score to go up a lot, but based on what you said about the old late payments, maybe I am wrong?

[Thomas_Thumb]

The lates are hurting your score 60 points +/- 10 points in my estimation.

You need to pay down your aggregate utilization to below 29%, NOT 30%, to realize the score improvement associated with crossing below the 30% threshold.

Why? Because Fico rounds up  - 29.1% rounds to 30%, whereas 28.9% rounds to 29%. taking aggregate to 28.9% from where you are now likely will boost your score 20 points +/- 10 points.

[Anonymous]

I think TT's estimation of 60 points +/- 10 is pretty solid.  I'd probably guess 70 points +/- 10, so pretty darn close to what he was thinking.  I'd say that for a single baddie 60 is about right, but since it was stated that there are multiples in the 90-120 day range I feel it could be a little higher, even with the diminishing returns factored in.

[Anonymous]

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wrote:

I am amazed that the late payments still have such a large negative effect after over 5 years. Why am I always reading about how the negative effects diminish over time? According to my report, I have only one card with late payments, but they range from 90 to 120 days late. This was from May 2011 through May 2012. Any way to estimate how much this is hurting my score? Discover FICO has me at 705. My total cc debt is now 26K, which they show as being 49% of my utilization. If I pay down the cc debt to 30% I would expect the score to go up a lot, but based on what you said about the old late payments, maybe I am wrong?

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30 and 60 day lates diminish after two years. Those 90 and 120 day lates don’t diminish much until they are gone. They are considered a major while 30 and 60 days are considered a minor blip. That’s why they hurt more for much longer. 

[Anonymous]

     EvilEgg what do you mean by; “Could it be that Discover and CreditKarma have a different report date?” Do you mean “pull date”? Discover the credit card reports usually once per month, but Discover’s Credit Scorecard pulls (in my case) the day after my report date with them. Discover’s Credit Scorecard uses FICO 8 from TU and you can check to see that the scores are the same. First go on your Discover account and open you Credit Scorecard. Highlight your score (place your mouse over the number) and it will give you the exact date. Copy the date and score. Then go to “Scores” on your myFICO account. Click on the TU tab and score down to FICO® SCORE 8 TIMELINE. You can expand that section to change the scale. Once you opened it sufficiently, check the date you got from your Discover Scorecard date. Look at your score here and you will see they are exactly the same. At least for me it has been the same for over a year (or since Discover started using FICO 8).

     Credit Karma uses TU data but calculates using VantageScore 3.0 algorithms. This not only uses a completely different algorithm, but that algorithm ignores data FICO 8 uses (i.e. closed, paid as agreed accounts for 10 years after closing). Comparing CK data to true FICO 8 data is worse than comparing apples to oranges. I consider it like comparing apples to pterodactyls, but that’s just an opinion.  

Y

PS Discover's Credit Scorecard has my data the day after my report day every month (whether I call for it or not on that date). If my report date is the 18th of the month, I get a new Scorecard score (or value if it has not changed) by midnight of the 19th.

[Anonymous]

I woke up this morning to check my scorecard and it was down 213pts !! I was so upset. I called discover and they said they would investigate and give me a call back if they needed anymore information, but they said they would clear it up. Scared me half to death!