Has anyone noticed anomalies with FICO 5,4,2 recently?

[Anonymous]

Hi all, 

I want to preface this by saying I'm an engineer, so the concept of scoring algorithms isn't foreign to me. Of course, the fico scoring algorithm is something that noone will ever actually understand unless they built it (I know I don't). 

With that said, my fico score 8 has been consistently growing over the last year or so, along with my 5,4,2 scores respectively. I noticed over the last year with my credit behavior that it has been consistently going up ~ 5 points for my 5,4,2 each month, and around 10 points for my 8 score. Oddly, I just pulled down my fico score today and noticed that all of my fico 5,4,2 scores have gone down between 15 and 70 points across all of the bureaus. Is anyone seeing something similar? My credit behavior has not changed, no derogatory items have been added to my actual report, and the last time I pulled it was about 2 weeks ago when it was up to 70 points higher for 5,4,2. I'm seeking a mortgage, so this is particularly disturbing. Wondering if I'm the only person experiencing this?

[AllZero]

Insufficient data to answer your question.

I'll drop a few links.

I would recommend reading the below from ABCD2199
The Truth about Credit Card Utilization
My 11 Rules to Credit Rebuilding
FICO Score: What to pay down first?

From Birdman7
General Scoring Primer and Version 8 Master Thread rev.5.17.20

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi all, 

I want to preface this by saying I'm an engineer, so the concept of scoring algorithms isn't foreign to me. Of course, the fico scoring algorithm is something that noone will ever actually understand unless they built it (I know I don't). 

With that said, my fico score 8 has been consistently growing over the last year or so, along with my 5,4,2 scores respectively. I noticed over the last year with my credit behavior that it has been consistently going up ~ 5 points for my 5,4,2 each month, and around 10 points for my 8 score. Oddly, I just pulled down my fico score today and noticed that all of my fico 5,4,2 scores have gone down between 15 and 70 points across all of the bureaus. Is anyone seeing something similar? My credit behavior has not changed, no derogatory items have been added to my actual report, and the last time I pulled it was about 2 weeks ago when it was up to 70 points higher for 5,4,2. I'm seeking a mortgage, so this is particularly disturbing. Wondering if I'm the only person experiencing this?

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There's something odd about it.

You need to go over your reports before and after the score change with a fine toothed comb.

The mortgage scores are particularly sensitive to age-related factors. So if some older account(s) dropped off of your report(s) that could be a factor right there.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your response @SouthJamaica 

I have gone through it with a fine toothed comb, and nothing at all has changed. (in fact my balances have consistently gone down based between my last credit pull and today) If I didn't have obvious security concerns I would post it here. There have been no derogatory changes at all. 

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for your response @SouthJamaica 

I have gone through it with a fine toothed comb, and nothing at all has changed. (in fact my balances have consistently gone down based between my last credit pull and today) If I didn't have obvious security concerns I would post it here. There have been no derogatory changes at all. 

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1. Make sure the number of accounts in the 2 reports is the same.

2. Compare the mortgage score negative reason codes from the 2 reports. They may give you a clue.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for your response @SouthJamaica 

I have gone through it with a fine toothed comb, and nothing at all has changed. (in fact my balances have consistently gone down based between my last credit pull and today) If I didn't have obvious security concerns I would post it here. There have been no derogatory changes at all. 

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Mortgage Ficos, specifically EQ and to a lesser extent TU, don't like seeing a majority of cards reporting balances even if the balances are small. The penalty can be steep if 100% of cards are reporting. I have dropped 45 points on EQ Fico mortgage with 6 of 6 cards reporting small balances relative to AZE2. At the same time, no point loss on EQ Fico 8. The point penalty for # cards reporting on mortgage Ficos appears to be greater on EQ and TU if the respective CRA has an inquiry under 12 months on file.

Do you have more cards reporting balances than before? Have you added any inquiries recently on CRA reports?

Side note: Collections are treated more harshly on mortgage Ficos than on Fico 8. In fact collections under $100 are ignored on Fico 8. Check dates on derogatories.

[Anonymous]

These are all really great points @Thomas_Thumb 

I don't have any collections, and am in the process of closing on a house, so I haven't had any significant credit activity over the last 10 months. My last report had all of the same data my current report does, but somehow my 5,4,2 scores are up to 70 points lower. I called in to speak to customer service, but that seemed like a monumental waste of time. 

[Duke_Nukem]

Not sure if anything strange is currently going on, but I did notice something odd a couple of days ago.  My DW has a 5 month old Disco carrying a 0% BT.

Her EX2 dropped 14 points a couple of days ago (from 714 to 700) when that Disco reported a UTI going down from 71% to 67% (absolutely no other changes occurred, no aging changes, and no reason code changes for the EX2 variants).  Very strange and unexpected. 

The other EX2 variants (Bankcard, Auto) reacted similarly dropping between 10-14 points.  However, the other scores (EX8, EX5) went up a few points, as expected due to passing the individual 69% threshold (I'm assuming).

[Trudy]

Didn't warrant any where close to a 70pt difference but there seems to be an AAoA threshold between 11y8m and 11y11m.  @Anonymous and I went back and forth several months ago trying to determine why all of my EX2 scores dropped (5-7pt).  With all of my accounts reporting between a specific time frame this was odd as I could not find a change and it was not during that reporting period.  Eventually realized I had an old closed account fall off EX which dropped my AAoA by a 3 months.

Just something else to remind us that the 5,4,2's (at least 2's for this example) may respond differently to changes.  Thought I'd share my experience.

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous Welcome. Aging metrics please. Did this occur on the 1st?

@Duke_Nukem edit sorry, I misread too fast, the 69 threshold was the cause, of course.

@Trudy was it AAoA or AAoRA that was finally it? My memory falters.