Hey Y'all -
Today is the first of the month. My scores dropped. The only changes between yesterday and today is age of accounts.
Note:
(1) The oldest primary account that hit 6 years is a student loan.
(2) The oldest account overall (AU) that hit 8 years is a revolving account.
(3) The youngest account that hit 3 months is a primary revolving account.
Big Picture as of 2/1:
EX FICO 8 - Score drop -15 points
- Oldest Primary Account reached 6 years
- Oldest Account Overall (AU) reached 8 years
- Youngest Account reached 3 months
EQ FICO 8 - Score drop -25(!) points
- Oldest Primary Account reached 6 years
- Oldest Account Overall (AU) reached 8 years
- Youngest Account reached 3 months
TU FICO 8 - Score drop -5 points
- Oldest Primary Account reached 6 years
- AU Account does not report on TU
- Youngest Account reached 3 months
**Reason codes for each bureau also changed (I can only give specifics for EX reason codes -- EQ and TU codes also changed, but I don't have the exact wording for the previous codes, only the current codes):
EX on Jan 31st:
- Helping: (1) No Missed Payments; (2) Recent Credit Card Usage; (3) No collection / Public Record
- Hurting: (1) Short Account History
EX on Feb 1st:
- Helping: (1) No Missed Payments; (2) Low Revolving Credit Usage; (4) Recent Credit Card Usage
- Hurting: (1) Short Account History; (2) Loan Balances (student loans)
EQ on Feb 1st:
- Helping: (1) No Missed Payments (same); (2) Low Revolving Credit Usage (new); (3) Recent Credit Card Usage (same)
- Hurting: (1) Short Account History (same); (2) Loan Balances (new)
*The no collection / public record used to be a postitive reason
TU on Feb 1st (no AU Account):
- Helping: (1) No Missed Payments (same); (2) Long Credit History (new); (3) Recent Credit Card Usage (same)
- Hurting: (1) Short Revolving History (new); Loan Balances (same)
*The no collection / public record used to be a postitive reason
All of that leads me to believe that an AoOA for primary accounts hitting 6 years is a threshold for scorecard segmentation ('rebucketing'). My AU account hitting 8 years on the two bureaus which report my AU account may have also had an effect on 'Length of Credit' - possibly increasing the number of points lost. Other than the AU account, all bureaus have the same info.
Interesting tidbits:
- TU has a 'Long Credit History' reason code now that my oldest (primary) is 6 years, yet EX and EQ still list 'Short Account History' as a negative.
- TU is now distinguishing between my revolving accounts and loan accounts -- a student loan is the account that hit the 6 year mark; my oldest revolving account is 5 years 6 months and it's derogatory (paid charge-off) and for that I now get a 'Short Revolving History' negative reason code.
On the flip side, my Vantage-3 scores all increased: EX +23; EQ +28; TU+21.
That's it.... I've been in the garden for exactly 70 days (94 days since new account, 70 days since last HP) and now that my scores have dropped due to changes beyond my control, I'm contemplating stepping out of the garden to app for an NFCU CC. I became a member a month ago - opened a checking / savings -- but was serious about gardening so did not app for credit; was going to wait til Jan 2020. Now I feel like I may as well just go ahead and app now... then go back into the garden for a year.... I'm going to wait til the somewhat high balance on one of my cards reports at $0 this coming week first so I may change my mind by then and stay in the garden since I certainly don't need a new card -- i just kinda want to get my Navy lending relationship started... we'll see how I feel in a week. I'm not concerned about the score drops, find it quite interesting actually tho it was a bit disappointing to see at first but oh well -- at least it's not due to new negatives or anything.
Guess I need to update my siggy...
@Anonymous wrote:I agree that different scorecard assignment is the only possible way that increasing age of accounts factors could result in a lower score. Looking at your reason statements though, what stands out to me is that the presence of the loan-related statement was not there prior to the 1st (and your score drop) which suggests to me that something related to your loan(s) may be the cause here. You also only want to look at the negative statements, not the "helping" ones, as the negative ones are telling as to what's impacting your score.
Thanks for your thoughts / insight, BBS.
No changes to my loan balances (or anything else regarding the loans) between yesterday and today -- and they won't update for another 2 weeks.
The loan balances negative reason used to only show up on EX and EQ sporadically - whenever my overall util went above 9% -- January util was less than 9% and that reason code was not there; however, November and December util was at 11% and 13% respectively, and that reason code was there. My util has not changed since January (still below 9%) but now that reason shows up on EX and EQ. The loan balances negative reason has always displayed on TU.
I chalked it up to that reason code being somehow related to utilization (factoring into amounts / debt owed) since it only appeared, consistently, on TU and that is the bureau that does not have the AU account contributing to the total CL, so my aggregate (credit) util is always a bit higher on TU (average 11%). But now... it seems to no longer matter - it's there for all 3 bureaus regardless so I don't know..
FYI: Loan balances are all still quite high -- above 88%.
@Anonymous wrote:What types of score shifts have you seen with the presence vs absence of that negative reason statement pertaining to loans?
+/- 9 to 11 points.
OP, thanks for posting all the detail information.
Is is correct that you have at least one negative? Or did I misunderstand?
Is is correct that you have at least one negative? Or did I misunderstand?
@NRB525 wrote:
OP, thanks for posting all the detail information.
Is is correct that you have at least one negative? Or did I misunderstand?
YW and you are correct. I have a single derog. - paid charge off. No other lates or negative items.
I don't know, I have never heard of this... from everything I've read, the aging of your oldest account is a scorecard segmentation factor. The aging of a derogatory account should actually yield points, not change your scorecard assignment - only the removal of a derog would have that effect (ie. dirty → clean).
@Anonymous wrote:
Correct me if I’m wrong anyone, but if you have a derogatory, doesn’t that mean a change in scorecard can only come by the aging of that derogatory?
My student loans (I have 13 of them, one of which aged to 6 years) are reporting correctly now and always have - my credit mix has not been affected. My loans also have not reported since Jan. 15th - and there was no score change at that time (I get daily EX scores / reports). They will not report again til Feb. 15th. These score changes literally happened overnight, the score difference is 1/31 vs. 2/1.
@Anonymous wrote:
If that loan were not being properly reported and it were changing, could that affect credit mix points?
My AU account util is always low - always less than 2% (current balance is $331 out of $20K which is ~1.65%) - so this is a non-factor.
@Anonymous wrote:
If you don’t mind sharing, can you tell us what percentage the AU account is utilized at?
Accounts age on the first of the month, every month as far as FICO is concerned. This appears to be a scorecard reassignment due to the aging of my oldest account beyond a threshold of either 6 years or 8 years; or, perhaps, both. It seems I am now at / near the bottom of a better scorecard - given age of credit - because I have a derogatory account and still short credit history (in comparison to others within this scorecard).