Keeping the balance 0 all the time

[haulingthescoreup]

They have told several of this by a dramatic score drop when all report $0, despite being used. For Timothy, it was a 20-point drop.

I don't think that this is necessarily true for those with very high scores, though. They seem to miss the penalty for all $0's, which would make sense.

[RobertEG]

Are "they"  Fair Isaac?

There is only one answer i seek.  Does FairIsaac, in its scoring algorithm consider 1-9% better than 0%?

Message Edited by RobertEG on 07-01-2008 05:55 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, seek on. This was from FICO scores. About as close as we're going to get, I think. There's another post on this thread noting the same thing.

I'm also wary of anecdotal evidence, but if you see enough of it, you start thinking, hmmm, maybe there's something here. You can't always wait on the Big Kahuna to speak.

[RobertEG]

Maybe it depends a lot upon  which of the ten FICO scoring buckets you reside.  If you are in a higher achiever bucket, then most derog and delinq factors may no longer big separating factors, for they simply dont exist, so perchance %util has much more effect on higher achievers on those scoring algorithms..  But for those in low credit history and prior derog brackets, maybe % util does not weigh as heaviily as improving length of credit, and ditching derogs in the algoritms for those buckets.

I dunno. 

[marty56]

I am willing to let me CC balances go to 0 and see what happens.  They prblem is there is alot of activity on my CR with the old auto loan being paid off and the new one yet to report.  After this happens I will let my CC util go to 0.  its at $15 now so that wont be too hard.

If there is a score drop it would be real easy to fix.  LOL I wil tell DW that the reason I went to Best Buy is that I needed to buy something to raise my FICO score.

[Anonymous]

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RobertEG wrote:

Maybe it depends a lot upon  which of the ten FICO scoring buckets you reside.  If you are in a higher achiever bucket, then most derog and delinq factors may no longer big separating factors, for they simply dont exist, so perchance %util has much more effect on higher achievers on those scoring algorithms..  But for those in low credit history and prior derog brackets, maybe % util does not weigh as heaviily as improving length of credit, and ditching derogs in the algoritms for those buckets.

I dunno. 

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I believe it weighs as heavily in each bucket, but how many points are assigned to each tier might vary in different buckets.

There might be more points allotted to younger buckets for having it at say 19% or below, whereas in the longer buckets that are pickier you might need to be at 9% for the same number of points.
For example, I am likely in bucket we infer as 2-5 years....I have had %util listed as my #2 positive factor when it was at 15% total. That is a good but not great overall util, but within my newer to credit bucket it might be comparatively fantastic. I've raised my score 34 points on EQ since that report, and I estimate half of that effect was due to reduced util.

[smallfry]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@RobertEG wrote:

Maybe it depends a lot upon which of the ten FICO scoring buckets you reside. If you are in a higher achiever bucket, then most derog and delinq factors may no longer big separating factors, for they simply dont exist, so perchance %util has much more effect on higher achievers on those scoring algorithms.. But for those in low credit history and prior derog brackets, maybe % util does not weigh as heaviily as improving length of credit, and ditching derogs in the algoritms for those buckets.

I dunno.

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I believe it weighs as heavily in each bucket, but how many points are assigned to each tier might vary in different buckets.

There might be more points allotted to younger buckets for having it at say 19% or below, whereas in the longer buckets that are pickier you might need to be at 9% for the same number of points.
For example, I am likely in bucket we infer as 2-5 years....I have had %util listed as my #2 positive factor when it was at 15% total. That is a good but not great overall util, but within my newer to credit bucket it might be comparatively fantastic. I've raised my score 34 points on EQ since that report, and I estimate half of that effect was due to reduced util.

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I am in the 2-5 year bracket with 2 public records which are very old. My number 1 helper is always no missed payments followed by low credit usage. My utilization is always 1 or 2%.