@SouthJamaica wrote:Well I'm an open minded person.
I think I'm going to give this a try... open a savings account with local credit union... take out a share loan.
And see what happens to my score.
I'm a perfect test case because I have only revolving credit.
Sorry I haven't been on much.
Will do you one better, you may want to do this with Alliant as it's known stone cold to work, but read through my installment utilization thread: take the $500 loan, and pay $460 of it right back... if you want to test things and see how FICO reacts, move down 10% on each payment after it reports and see if you can tease out the additional breakpoints.
Think there's one at 80%, and we're guessing at this point there's another at 20%, but I and jamie both have gotten points as we've paid down, and I got seriously non-trivial ones (I gained 25+ points per bureau and I have extensive closed installment history already so more than just mix of credit which). Admittedly my shared secured loans are over a year at this point so they may not count as "new" but we don't have good data on that yet as far as FICO 8 goes... also this does help EX 98 too which is part of the mortgage trifecta, and any installment history on your report should help EQ/TU 04 too if you just have revolving though those haven't reacted to my installment utilization testing.
@SouthJamaica wrote:Well I'm an open minded person.
I think I'm going to give this a try... open a savings account with local credit union... take out a share loan.
And see what happens to my score.
I'm a perfect test case because I have only revolving credit.
Well, this may or may not have the intended effect. I got a PLOC from my local CU, they told me it would report as "Installment loan", but I have no Installment loan on my latest MyFICO reporting, 9 months after the fact. What I apparently do have is another revolving credit product. If the Alliant product is noted as being reported as Installment, that would be a good place to go.
In your OP, you said you were going to pay all cards to zero, and continue to pay them all to zero, and you didn't think it would have any impact on your score. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it will most definitely reduce your score. You can go with zero ( suggest doing this prior to opening up any other borrowing ) and report back when your score drops, and by how much 
Or, you can search in this Understanding FICO Scoring forum and just look for all the threads titled "Paid off all my debt and my score dropped".
But, we are always looking for new data points, so you can provide that one with no cards reporting balances
@NRB525 wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:Well I'm an open minded person.
I think I'm going to give this a try... open a savings account with local credit union... take out a share loan.
And see what happens to my score.
I'm a perfect test case because I have only revolving credit.
Well, this may or may not have the intended effect. I got a PLOC from my local CU, they told me it would report as "Installment loan", but I have no Installment loan on my latest MyFICO reporting, 9 months after the fact. What I apparently do have is another revolving credit product. If the Alliant product is noted as being reported as Installment, that would be a good place to go.
In your OP, you said you were going to pay all cards to zero, and continue to pay them all to zero, and you didn't think it would have any impact on your score. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it will most definitely reduce your score. You can go with zero ( suggest doing this prior to opening up any other borrowing ) and report back when your score drops, and by how much
Or, you can search in this Understanding FICO Scoring forum and just look for all the threads titled "Paid off all my debt and my score dropped".
But, we are always looking for new data points, so you can provide that one with no cards reporting balances
LOC's are almost always revolving; there was a line introduced somewhere for HELOC's and some testing a few years back when it was introduced suggested it might be around the 30-35K mark so as to not impact people's revolving utilization with the outsized HELOC vs. CC use from their product designs.
Don't think it was ever firmed up on that; a share secured loan is installment from anyone to my knowledge.
@Revelate wrote:
Don't think it was ever firmed up on that; a share secured loan is installment from anyone to my knowledge.
I don't disagree, but a plan to "go to my CU and get a secured loan" has a possibility it might not fill the bill. There's a certain type of reporting one is looking for to add to the file. Revolving doesn't cut it.
@NRB525 wrote:I don't disagree, but a plan to "go to my CU and get a secured loan" has a possibility it might not fill the bill. There's a certain type of reporting one is looking for to add to the file. Revolving doesn't cut it.
OK will check it out, try to make sure I get an 'instalment loan'
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:I don't disagree, but a plan to "go to my CU and get a secured loan" has a possibility it might not fill the bill. There's a certain type of reporting one is looking for to add to the file. Revolving doesn't cut it.
OK will check it out, try to make sure I get an 'instalment loan'
PRetty much the verbiage on any lender's site confirms it.
If in doubt, just go with Alliant.
@Revelate wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:Well I'm an open minded person.
I think I'm going to give this a try... open a savings account with local credit union... take out a share loan.
And see what happens to my score.
I'm a perfect test case because I have only revolving credit.
Sorry I haven't been on much.
Will do you one better, you may want to do this with Alliant as it's known stone cold to work, but read through my installment utilization thread: take the $500 loan, and pay $460 of it right back... if you want to test things and see how FICO reacts, move down 10% on each payment after it reports and see if you can tease out the additional breakpoints.
Think there's one at 80%, and we're guessing at this point there's another at 20%, but I and jamie both have gotten points as we've paid down, and I got seriously non-trivial ones (I gained 25+ points per bureau and I have extensive closed installment history already so more than just mix of credit which). Admittedly my shared secured loans are over a year at this point so they may not count as "new" but we don't have good data on that yet as far as FICO 8 goes... also this does help EX 98 too which is part of the mortgage trifecta, and any installment history on your report should help EQ/TU 04 too if you just have revolving though those haven't reacted to my installment utilization testing.
OK Revelate.
I'm ready to test your reindeer game.
I'm joining Alliant and will soon have the savings account in place.
Now which type of loan should I use, or should I use one of each: "Savings Secured" or "Savings Secured Term"?
Then I pay off 80% and pay the rest off slowly?
Thanks
Double posted, whacked
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:Well I'm an open minded person.
I think I'm going to give this a try... open a savings account with local credit union... take out a share loan.
And see what happens to my score.
I'm a perfect test case because I have only revolving credit.
Sorry I haven't been on much.
Will do you one better, you may want to do this with Alliant as it's known stone cold to work, but read through my installment utilization thread: take the $500 loan, and pay $460 of it right back... if you want to test things and see how FICO reacts, move down 10% on each payment after it reports and see if you can tease out the additional breakpoints.
Think there's one at 80%, and we're guessing at this point there's another at 20%, but I and jamie both have gotten points as we've paid down, and I got seriously non-trivial ones (I gained 25+ points per bureau and I have extensive closed installment history already so more than just mix of credit which). Admittedly my shared secured loans are over a year at this point so they may not count as "new" but we don't have good data on that yet as far as FICO 8 goes... also this does help EX 98 too which is part of the mortgage trifecta, and any installment history on your report should help EQ/TU 04 too if you just have revolving though those haven't reacted to my installment utilization testing.
OK Revelate.
I'm ready to test your reindeer game.
I'm joining Alliant and will soon have the savings account in place.
Now which type of loan should I use, or should I use one of each: "Savings Secured" or "Savings Secured Term"?
Then I pay off 80% and pay the rest off slowly?
Thanks
Savings Secured, for teh full 5 year term.
If you want definite goodness just go with the 90% paydown though I'd be curious if someone tested call it 29% then 19% respectively if they were so inclined. We know there's a breakpoint somewere north of 60% and one user reported 80%, and it looks as though based on some of my old data that 16% is good therefore presumably there's another line at either 20 or 30%.
After that schedule a dollar payment every six months or whatever so that your account doesn't get flagged for inactivity. Would also like to see someone with no installment history let it report normally for the first month to see what if any mix of credit did for one's profile when it reported. Lot of data still to be done for FICO 8.