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Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

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Anonymous
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Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

Hello All!

 

I've been working on rebuilding my credit and have made a lot of progress in less than a year. I was looking at factors negatively affecting my FICO score and one of them is "you have a short credit history" but that is including a closed credit card from 9 years, 6 months ago. Right now my average age of accounts is 1 year,  5 months due to a lot of new accounts. I'm wondering how much of a blow I am going to see to my FICO score when the closed card falls off? For reference, all of my accounts are as follows:

 

Open:

QS1 - 9 months

BuyPower - 2 months

Slate - 2 months

Discover it - 2 months

NFCU CashRewards - 3 months

NFCU CLOC - 2 months

NFCU Auto Loan - 2 months

Student Loan - 2 years, 4 months

 

Closed:

Cap1 Auto - 10 months

Cap 1 Auto - 2 years, 1 month

Cap1 Platinum - 1 year, 1 month

Credit One - 9 months

Comenity (falling off) - 9 years, 6 months

16 REPLIES 16
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

You mention that the Comenity card was closed 9.5 years ago.  But you do not say when it was opened.

 

The length of time an account has been closed is not a scoring factor.  The length of time since an account was opened is a scoring factor and an important one.

 

We need to know the ages of all your closed accounts, starting from when they were opened, not from when they were closed.

Message 2 of 17
rbentley
Established Contributor

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?


@Anonymous wrote:

Hello All!

 

I've been working on rebuilding my credit and have made a lot of progress in less than a year. I was looking at factors negatively affecting my FICO score and one of them is "you have a short credit history" but that is including a closed credit card from 9 years, 6 months ago. Right now my average age of accounts is 1 year,  5 months due to a lot of new accounts. I'm wondering how much of a blow I am going to see to my FICO score when the closed card falls off? For reference, all of my accounts are as follows:

 

Open:

QS1 - 9 months

BuyPower - 2 months

Slate - 2 months

Discover it - 2 months

NFCU CashRewards - 3 months

NFCU CLOC - 2 months

NFCU Auto Loan - 2 months

Student Loan - 2 years, 4 months

 

Closed:

Cap1 Auto - 10 months

Cap 1 Auto - 2 years, 1 month

Cap1 Platinum - 1 year, 1 month

Credit One - 9 months

Comenity (falling off) - 9 years, 6 months


I may be calculating this incorrectly but I show you presently have 171 months on credit divided by 13 accounts for 1 year and 3 months.  Not sure where the missing two months between our calculations is.  3rd grade math is not my strong suit.

 

Using my figures, in 6 months when your Comenity falls off you should have an AAoA of 1 year. You shouldn't see any scroe drop on that account.  The loss of your Comenity account is cushioned by the large number of accounts its age was spread upon. Your AoOA though will take a hit from its high of 9 years, 11 months down to two years, 10 months.  That will hurt you some.  I can't speak to that loss, perhpas BBS can weigh in with his expert scroing advice.  You will see a scoring bump when your youngest account reaches 1 year, but assuming that you get no additional cards that will not be for another 2 months after you Comenity card drops off.

 

I would recomend you report directly to the garden and not apply for new credit for a minimum on 10 months from now.

 

 

Message 3 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

@CreditGuyInDixie Sorry for the confusion! All the months I provided are from when the accounts were opened. I just separated open accounts from closed accounts in case that made a difference since those will eventually fall off too. My oldest account (comenity) was opened 9 years and 6 months ago.

Message 4 of 17
rbentley
Established Contributor

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

CGD is correct, as always.  Your presently closed accounts have some age in addition to the length of time they have been closed.  Perhaps that is where the 2 month difference in our calculations of your AAoA occur.

 

In any event, I suspect the biggest hit you are going to take is the large dip in your AoOA.  How much that will translate into a score decrease is hard to say and may be offset somewhat but the bump you will get when the AoYA hits 1 year.

Message 5 of 17
rbentley
Established Contributor

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?


@Anonymous wrote:

@CreditGuyInDixie Sorry for the confusion! All the months I provided are from when the accounts were opened. I just separated open accounts from closed accounts in case that made a difference since those will eventually fall off too. My oldest account (comenity) has been opened for 9 years and 6 months.


This does make a difference.  Are you saying that Comenity is closed but has a present age of 9 years and 6 months?  If so, when was it closed?  It should continue to report for 10 years past the date it was closed.  You may not be seeing it drop off in 6 months as you have feared.

Message 6 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

@rebentley Yes sorry lol my Comenity account was opened in Sept 2009 and closed in Sept 2013 by them for nonuse. I was thinking they fall off if they account is closed and it is 10 years old, but it is actually 10 years from Sep 2013? That's much better news because by then everything else should age as I don't have any reason to open any more new accounts.

Message 7 of 17
rbentley
Established Contributor

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?


@Anonymous wrote:

@rebentley Yes sorry lol my Comenity account was opened in Sept 2009 and closed in Sept 2013 by them for nonuse. I was thinking they fall off if they account is closed and it is 10 years old, but it is actually 10 years from Sep 2013? That's much better news because by then everything else should age as I don't have any reason to open any more new accounts.


Yes.  Closed accounts continue to age for 10 years from the date they are closed.  Your Comenity account will not drop off your reports until August 2023.  

Message 8 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

Was the Comenity card opened and then closed a month later?  I am surprised the card is scheduled to fall off your reports so soon.  Usually a closed account stays on a person's reports for 10 years after closure.  (Nine years and 11 months is also common.)

 

Your Age of Oldest Account will end up going from just under 10 years to just over 2 years.  That's significant, but it's really hard to know what the impact would be.

 

The more important point is that knowing the answer (i.e. a perfect prediction) does not help you make any decisions.  The score drop is going to be whatever it is.


While we cannot help you, you can help the score theorists here a lot.  If you can get your profile to be as stable as possible in the month or two before it falls off and then tell us how much of a drop occurs, that would help us understand better the impact of Age of Oldest Account (specifically going from 9.9 to 2.1).

Message 9 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Oldest account falling off soon, how much will my FICO be affected?

@rbentley well that's exciting! thank you for the information because I was worried about my AAoA falling below 1 year. So in August 2023, I can expect more of a hit to my AoOA more than my AAoA? My plan is to just grow the existing CC's I have and fight the age to apply for a 2nd NFCU card. Smiley Surprised

Message 10 of 17
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