Frustrated....Did AZEO & All I Got Was 3 Lousy Points

[Lippy4246]

So I get an email alert from Experian that my Fico 8 went up and very excited to see how my hard work paid off. And I log in and my score went from 733 to 736. I'm also annoyed because my TU (Fico from Discover & Barclays) has been stagnant at 733 since October and my EQ (Citi) dropped one point to 746.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what else I can do so I'll provide some background information.

I have a chapter 7 BK that falls off 9/19
I have no delinquent accounts all accounts are paid on time and are reflected on my credit reports.

I have 5 active revolving charge cards and 2 active store cards with a total credit line of 43,500 and I'm using 1% of this with 4% being used of my Discovers $13,500 credit limit. All other cards are reporting zero.

I have an auto loan through cap one for $13,100 with $8,064 remaining plus two closed auto loans paid in full in excellent standing. One of those loans was reaffirmed.

My AoOA is 21 years 10 months
My AAoA is 6 plus years
My youngest account is 10 months as I opened two accounts in May last year and one in July

Then of course I have 3 inquires that turned 1 year this month on EX, one on EQ and one on TU in July.

But that's it. I seem to be going nowhere. Is this a case that I have maxed out my dirty bucket? Any feedback is greatly appreciated

[Anonymous]

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@Lippy4246 wrote:

I have 5 active revolving charge cards and 2 active store cards with a total credit line of 43,500 and I'm using 1% of this with 4% being used of my Discovers $13,500 credit limit. All other cards are reporting zero.

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Looks like you are asking for feedback on two things:

(1)  Why didn't AZEO get me a bigger score boost?

(2)  Is there anything I can do to improve my score further?

Regarding #1 we can't say much at this point because we don't have a "before" and "after" description of your cards (before and after AZEO).  It looks like the description you gave above is "after."  If you went from a total U of 8% to 1% it might be very much expected for AZEO to give you at most 3 points, possibly none.  If you want from 55% to 1% it would be really odd.

Regarding #2 your guess about the BK and the dirty profile is likely to be right.  736-746 is very good for someone with a Bankruptcy.  You might very well get some more scoring points (on FICO 8) when your single open loan gets paid down to < 8.9% of the original loan amount.  When all inquiries and all accounts are > 1 year old then you may get some more points, though again not many.

[Anonymous]

Lippy4246 I understand your frustration. On my end I forgot to leave a few dollars outstanding and lost 16 points off my FICO scores. There will be a few dollar back in a couple of days but gads!

[Lippy4246]

CGID...Pre AZEO I had an aggregate utilization of less than 8.9%, but on multiple cards. Sometimes on a maximum of three cards. I did have over 9% utilization on one card at one point as I was paying down debt on a balance transfer.

I'm also wondering if I'll see movement once my Citi card turns a year old in July

[Anonymous]

How many cards were you showing a balance on just prior to AZEO?

[Lippy4246]

When I was paying off debt three. The last three months two cards as I was using a rewards gas card then paying it off in full. Now just one

[Anonymous]

You went from 2 cards out of 7 showing a balance to 1.  Counting the loan, you went from 3 accounts out of 8 showing a balance to 2.

I am surprised you got any extra points at all.  Certainly you should not have been expecting a significant rise.

Even if you had gone from 5 cards to 1 I would not have expected more than a few.

[Lippy4246]

I guess my dream of hitting 800 will have to wait. I have no plans of opening new credit until the BK falls off my report anyway. I want to try my luck with AMEX and have as much firepower as possible when the time comes. My main issue going forward will be my oldest account is scheduled to fall off my report come August changing my AoOA from 21 years to 10 and God only knows what that will do to my AAoA. All I can do is keep paying my bills on time.

Thanks

[HeavenOhio]

FICO tells us to aim for less than half of our cards reporting balances. Many people will top out that factor by doing that. Some will do better by reporting fewer balances. Two of my scores top out with with less than half. One score is at its highest when I whittle the number of cards with positive balances down to one.

Along with that, getting below 8.9% overall utilization is generally the best one can get. A few of us have reported a gain by getting below 5% or so, but we don't see that happen very often.

You were already doing very well, which is why AZEO didn't add much to your score. It's still a worthwhile test, though, as you now know the best scores you can get with your current profile.

[Anonymous]

I agree with CGIDs last post.  If your aggregate utilization before/after was below 8.9%, simply going from AZE2 or AZE3 to AZEO usually won't result in a score gain and if it does it would only be a few points.

Hitting 800 is impossible with the presence of a BK; top score would likely be around a 760 if all other factors were perfect and your BK was about to fall off.  When your inquiries become unscoreable and your AoYA hits 1 year in a couple of months, I'd ballpark your scores to rise to 745-750 if you have AZEO in place.  At that point IMO you'll be within 10-15 points of what your top possible score could be with that BK still lingering.