FICO "High Achievers"

[Anonymous]

According to the new FICO score report format, people with scores > 760:

1% or fewer of them have a 60 day late payment

Virtually none have a public record

Opened their oldest account 19 years ago, on average

Have an average age of accounts between 6 - 12 years

Opened their first revolving account 19 years ago, on average

93% have no missed payments at all

If they do have a missed payment, it happened 4 years ago, on average

Have an average of 12 accounts in good standing

Have an average total balance of $5000 on non-mortgage loans

The summary didn't say anything about # of inquiries.  I remember reading somewhere that people with > 6 inquiries were 8x more likely to file BK than people with 0 inquiries.  Or maybe it was people with > 8 inquiries were 6x more likely ... whatever.

[Anonymous]

I believe it's 0 or 1 inquiries in the past year.

[Anonymous]

The increased number of inquiries generally istaken to point to people who are desparate for credit or living beyond their menas.  IMHO that factor should be updated with the newer prevalence of 0% offers that lots of people now take advantage of.  The increased request for credit may not be desparation anymore justsmart financial sense.

I believe that was formulated when all banks basically offered the same interest rate across the boards.  Gold, Platinum and Silver actually had meaning depending on your credit rating.  Nowadays someone who qual'd for a 16% card can get a 9% just due to the competition between creditors..  I also noticed that most software still says the average interest rate is 18%.  Not in my wallet

[Anonymous]

oh how I am dreaming of one day being a Fico "High Achiever"

[Anonymous]

yeah, I have a few 0% credit cards for 50k for 3 years that I use to pay down my prime rate home equity lines of credit.

I save a lot of money, but it hurts my score....totally illogical on their side 

Message Edited by rrm on 05-07-2007 07:32 PM

[smallfry]

Isn't the point of a high score to save money? Don't sweat the score. You've got the house and the car.

[Anonymous]

Well, I believe the "reasons" are created after the fact. I believe they looked at statistical signifigance of things they can objectively measure. People with more inquiries tend to be a little riskier than those without. I don't believe I've never seen a significant score drop/increase for more or less inquiries (significant being > 20 points). Now, given two people with the same score one with a bunch of very recent inquiries and one without a creditor may choose to treat them differently. Someone with a lot of inquiries from credit card companies in the past month or two may have received several credit cards that don't show up on their credit report yet. At about six months has past they will likely be on the credit report and they will have shown a usage pattern but the creditor may question why they are looking for additional credit. Beyond six months it becomes less of an issue, and more so after a year. Having said that, I imagine FICO updates their formulas every once in a while as new credit patterns emerge, particularly as people learn to reverse engineer the system and game it, since their new credit patterns will affect the system. -- Mike

[Anonymous]

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darthtuttle wrote:
Having said that, I imagine FICO updates their formulas every once in a while as new credit patterns emerge, particularly as people learn to reverse engineer the system and game it, since their new credit patterns will affect the system. -- Mike

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And it was brilliant of FICO to start these forums -- we openly share all those methods of gaming the system, which enables them to tweak the formulae. 

[Anonymous]

It is ok to have 1 every 6 months, almost expected. 2-3 ehh ok every 6 months. Not more than that. lol I have more than 12.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure Fair Isaac, the CRAs, the CAs and JDBs all cruise CB and CIC.

In FI's case, I think they were just trying to compete in the marketplace and set themselves apart as at least less consumer hostile if not more consumer friendly.