Lots of Activity, what do you think?

[Anonymous]

My Fico score was 786 originally.

In the past two months... Opened Amex, Capital One, and Citibank Amex is 2k CL, Capital One is 3k CL, Citibank is 4k CL

Increased credit limit on Commerce from 1.5k to 3k, Bank of America from 2k to 3k
(As a side note, also got APR reduced to Prime + 3% on BoA and Commerce)

Bought a Piano with the Capital One card for 2.1k(CapOne actually reported the CL of 3k to the Bureaus for some odd reason) , which is currently paid down to 1.4k, which I think will take the next 6 months to pay down (Currently at teaser 0 apr for 12 months).

Usually I just PIF Bank of America every month, active use 600-700 every month, so the CapOne card is the only card with a balance.

I know I probably shouldn't have opened up three cards so closely together, I did take a ding of 10 points for the Citibank card but I don't plan on looking for a house for at least two or three years.

So the bad things were that I opened up cards close to each other, which definitely did a small ding for 10 points. I'm also a little under 50% utilization on CapOne now.

Current plan is to do what I usually do, using the Citibank/Amex/Commerce/BoA as PIF forcing statements. Pay off the CapOne card as I can (Not charging anything on it at all). Calling the cards every 3-6 months and pester them into higher CL's.

Even though it's a new card, I wonder if I can hassle CapOne into giving me a bigger CL to reduce the utilization on that card, especially since it's the only one I'm carrying a balance on. I hear they're tightwads about that.

I'm a college student with a year till' graduation, and I won't be in the market for a house or a car for at least two more years after that. I figured I might as well open up the three cards so that I'll have a variety of good cards with a long history. Only thing I'm worried about is that CapOne, reading so many horror stories about them heh.

What do you think? Too aggressive? Good planning?

Message Edited by Jed on 10-28-2007 02:54 AM

[Ariel]

There's virtually no difference between 786 and 776, so as long as the downward trend doesn't continue, why worry about it?

[haulingthescoreup]

I think that you're right on target. You have a nice mix of cards, you're on top of them, you PIF other than the one 0% intro, no lates, etc. You'll have the piano paid off in a half a year, and then you'll be back to making lenders drool. Do you have any student loans or other installment loans? That's useful for scores when it does come time for a mortgage, but there's no sense in taking out a loan just to make your score happy. Your score is great, anyway. You should be in perfect shape at graduation.

Yes, there are a lot of Cap 1 adventure stories around here, but it doesn't look like you're terribly dependent on that one card. Even if they do figure out a way to screw you up, you have lots of civilized cards to take up the slack, and you only have $1.4K left with them anyway. They might be your future sock-drawer card, or they could also wind up treating you decently. (It does happen.)

What kind of piano?

[Anonymous]

I got a Clavinova Digital piano. It's seeexy ^_^

Actually my real question is like, how much do you guys think Fico is a snapshot vs. some kind of a moving weighted average?

So looking at two different issues and how they impact a score say 3 years down the line.

Minor aspect: Losing 10 points for applying for three cards really close to each other, in the future say 2 years down the line, do you think Fico would notice, "Ah, two years ago he opened three cards in a two month span, and two of them were even on the same day". I think even if so, the effect is negligible.

Major aspect: So carrying a balance, do you think Fico is more like a snapshot rather than a moving average in this aspect? So say all things being equal, for two years you carried like 75% utilization, then in the third year your utilization bottoms out to %5. When you get your score in year 3, is it as if the first two years of heavy dependence never happened?

Message Edited by Jed on 10-28-2007 10:08 AM

[haulingthescoreup]

first the inqs: They display for 24 months, and then drop off. They're only counted for the first 12 months, with emphasis on the first six. So they can zap you in the short term, but they fade very quickly.

whether FICO "remembers": it's supposed to be strictly a snapshot, but there have been some pretty angry posters saying that after they paid back their balances, etc, they didn't quite get back to where they started from, at least not right away. So a number of us are wondering if there's not a leeetle bit of memory for util changes. But there are often so many different things going on that it's difficult to pin change and degrees of change on just one factor. It's possible that those posters' scores didn't bounce back all the way because they moved into a new bucket (credit peer group) in the interim, and so their scores are low until they catch up with their new standards, whatever they might be.

By the way, how long is your overall credit history? If your FICO score is still viewable, look at screen 4, Credit-at-a-Glance. It also might display on screen two, under the balance scales, as a "this is helping" or "this is hurting" element. If you're about to go over 5 years of history, for instance, you might be headed for a new bucket, too.

[Anonymous]

Picked up a new fico score, all the dust hasn't quite settled yet. Citibank and Capone are both posted, but Amex isn't yet.

Equifax is now at 752 down from 788.

For things hurting my score:
Recently opened new credit "
You have a short credit history"

I am an Authorized User on two of my parents cards.
Unvl/Citi 1997 (Shows as my oldest account, 10 years)
Fia Csna 2001

My Own:
Commerce 2005
BoA 2006

Amex Blue 2007
Citi Diamond Preferred 2007
CapOne Plat Prestigue 2007

Average Age: 2 years

I also have an Express for men card from 2006, and an american eagle card from 2007. No fees or anything on them, but I already closed the A&E card because... well, it annoyed me to have like this useless appendage in my credit. I'll be closing the Express card soon I think. I'm having it show that it's at my request.

How do you think the change in Authorized users will affect me? Will fico retroactively ignore the past history on my parents cards and only look at my personal cards? Looking at it, if you ignore the AU cards my average age plummets to like .6

Ah well, at least now that I got the new cards in they'll age nicely for when I'll need them.

Btw, this is the same person as Jed. Not sure how I managed to have two posting accounts. Anyways...

Message Edited by Sujian on 10-28-2007 12:14 PM

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, Jed/ Sujian--yes, I was scrolling the screen up and down there a couple of times, lol. There are a lot of us who will definitely be affected if and when they stop counting history. My overall length will go from 18 years back down to 12, and average length from 4 down to 3. They have already delayed the implementation of FICO 2008, and at this point, who knows when it will actually happen? There are a lot of issues affecting fairness of scoring, so this could be tied up in DC for a good, long time.

It was getting on as AU (I had never bothered before) that probably bumped me into my new bucket. It would be interesting to see if they would demote me if I lost that history--maybe my scores would go back up! Although EQ would probably figure a way to drop me yet again. I would think that you would definitely wind up in a new score pool (bucket.)

Closed cards (and loans, etc.) will still count toward your overall history for another 10 years after closing. I'm really ambivalent about store cards, which to me are like ticking time bombs. I think that by the time the AE and Express fall off your reports, you will have enough credit lines opened pretty soon after those were that there won't be much impact. This is assuming that you will join the rest of us slobs and acquire car loans, mortgages, maybe another card, and all the other barnacles of American life. And as long as your CL's on the "real" cards are decent, your util will probably be OK. But if your total CL was low, losing them might raise your overall util, so just be aware.

The hurt from the inqs will fade in 6 months and be gone another 6 months after that, and since you're not in any hurry, you can shrug off your current score drop.

BTW, I'll bet there isn't a poster or lurker on these forums over the age of 25 or so who isn't slapping their forehead, saying, d*mn, why wasn't I doing this back when I was in college?!?!? Congrats