Puzzled

[elvigy]

So I just noticed this on the "Understanding your FICO score" page. This was from a report dated 7/13. It says one of the things hurting my score is my short credit history. Most people have an AAoA of between 6 and 12 years. My AAoA is, uh, 14. And my oldest account is almost 17 years old. What am I missing here? (This will actually change significantly soon since I've added a couple of cards but still curious what this means).

You have a short credit history.

Your oldest account was opened16 Years, 9 Months agoAverage age of your accounts14 years

FICO High Achievers opened their oldest account 19 years ago, on average.

Most FICO High Achievers have an average age of accounts between 6 and 12 years.

Your FICO score measures the age of your oldest account and the average age of your accounts. In your case, either your oldest account was opened recently or the average age of your accounts is relatively low. People that do not frequently open new accounts and have longer credit histories generally pose less risk to lenders. Therefore, as your credit history lengthens and you pay your bills on time, this factor should have less of a negative impact on your score.

[Anonymous]

On a standpoint of high achievers. your oldest account is 3 years younger than their 19 year old account.

I wouldn't really worry about it.  When your report is clean and your score is higher they have to find something to be negative about.

[elvigy]

Ah, that makes an odd kind of sense. Basically they're saying if I had even older accounts my score would be higher. I get it.

[Shogun]

They put what's affecting your score the most, and with you, they had to dig really deep!!!!!!  So basically if that's what's holding your score back, you're doing pretty darn good.