Started Using Upgraded Amazon Prime Visa - Score Jumped 18 Points

[SouthJamaica]

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@gamegrrl wrote:

Well, just got another alert a minute ago. I have just attained my first perfect 850 via TU!!!

The alert was just the normal "the total balance of all your HELOC accounts has changed" alert that I get every month after my HELOC payment is made.

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Congratulations gamegrrl

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@JLK93 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

TT, JLK, Elim, and any other experts --

This thread started with our OP relaying an alert message, which was "Recent Activity has been detected on an inactive account in your [insert CRA name] data."

People who use the myFICO credit monitoring packages get this alert message all the time, and many of them wonder whether using a card after a long period of inactivity could in itself affect one's score.  (Assume that we are talking about a small purchase and that the card then reports this small balance to the CRAs.)

Can we say with virtual certainty that (apart from the two known issues listed below) this Inactive To Active transition is not in any way part of the FICO algorithms?  I would love to get a final answer to this.  It affects me in a practical way, because I tend to go out of my way to use each one of my cards every three months because of this d*$m alert message -- essentially on the off chance that there is some kind of connection with the actual algorithm.

The two ways that have been identified that this transition could affect the score are as follows:

    (1) "Too few accounts with recent payment information" (as TT observes, FICO appears to like it when more than just 1-2 accounts are showing activity).  Here the card becoming active might HELP the score.

    (2) Number of credit cards showing a balance (FICO likes it when most of your cards are showing a $0 balance).  Here the card becoming active might HARM the score.

Aside from that, is everyone certain that the text of the alert is simply that: the text of alertable event, but not an event that has any relationship whatsoever to any FICO scoring model?

PS.  As BBS observes, a final way that the score could be affected is if all cards were previously $0.

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I went back through 3 years of alerts and documented every alert I've received for inactive accounts reporting activity. I posted the results in a previous thread. I don't remember the exact numbers. However, I had numerous alerts for inactive cards reporting activity after 12 months, 10 months, 8 months, 5 months and 3 months. I have never lost or gained even 1 point for those alerts. If it was a scoring event, it seems like I would have seen at least 1 point change at some time or another.

My Transunion FICO 8 scores have pretty consistently dropped about 3 points whenever 4 cards report a balance. That has been pretty consistent for most buckets. So, letting inactive cards report a balance could decrease scores in this scenario. 

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A profile with limited activity may benefit from an incremental increase in activity - I see that on my EQ Fico 08 bankcard reason statements. The OP had an inactive card report activity NOT report a balance. Certainly having additional accounts report balances may have a negative impact ...depending on the profile.

Anyone who shows activity on quite a few open accounts (say more than 4) has already reached the "activity threshold". For example someone with 8 active accounts likely would not see an impact with a couple additional accounts becoming active or a couple going inactive.

However, someone with 4 active accounts allowing a couple to go inactive could experience a negative score impact - IMO. On the flip side I suspect someone with 6 open accounts showing activity on two accounts only may benefit from showing activity (not balances per se) on a couple accounts that have not been used in a few months. That's where I think I'm at with my 6 account profile for enhanced Fico 08 models.

[JLK93]

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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:

A profile with limited activity may benefit from an incremental increase in activity - I see that on my EQ Fico 08 bankcard reason statements. 

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 Do you see it in your scores or just the reason statements?

[JLK93]

gamegrrl,

Your score increases are fascinating. If I understand correctly, you got two increases on TU in 2 days. The second was for 10 points. How many points was the first one for?

I'm wondering if you may have crossed 2 thresholds. I'm thinking that in addition to the 1 year youngest account threshold, you may have crossed a loan utilization threshold. You said that your HELOC was at 91%. Is is still above 90% after the alert you got today? What is the overall percentage remaining on your loans?

Your AAoA is 5 years and 5 months. That makes your 850 one of the very few documented 850s with an AAoA under 8 years. Is your AAoA the same on each credit bureau?

If the information is relatively the same for each credit bureau, you may soon have an 850 trifecta.

[Anonymous]

I didn't know that an 850 was possible with a 5 year AAoA.  I always thought one needed 7-8 years AAoA to achieve an 850.

[JLK93]

@Anonymous wrote:

I didn't know that an 850 was possible with a 5 year AAoA.  I always thought one needed 7-8 years AAoA to achieve an 850.

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I always thought 8 years AAoA was the minimum to achieve an 850 score. Someone on myfico recently had an 850 with 7.5 years AAoA. Someone on creditboards recently had an 850 with a 6 year AAoA.

Where do you draw the line with AAoA? Do you think 7 and 8 receive the same scoring treatment? Do you think there is a difference between 5 and 7 year AAoA? The only AAoA threshold I have data for is the 10 year threshold. When I crossed 10 years AAoA threshold, I didn't see any score changes. There might have been some behavioral changs I didn't detect.

Maybe we can get gamegrrl to confirm her 5 year 5 month AAoA.

[Thomas_Thumb]

It would be informational if the OP could list AAoA on all CRAs (AAoA based on all open+closed accounts) AAoA may or may not factor in AU accounts.

Note: Clean file scorecard assignments consider age of oldest, age of youngest and #/type of accounts

[Anonymous]

TT, do you know the AoOA that yields maximum gain?  Like say, 16+ years... meaning that whether your AoOA is 16 or 35 you get scored/bucketed ideally? 

Using 16 as an example here, perhaps those that are able to achieve an 850 score with a 5 year AAoA have an AoOA of 16+ years, where someone with a 7-8 year AAoA can achieve an 850 score with say, an AoOA of 12 years.  Again, those numbers are just for discussion purposes.

[newhis]

@gamegrrl, you rock!

Great work, congrats.

[gamegrrl]

So guess what was in my inbox this morning. "Account change has been detected in your Experian data." So I logged in. My Experian is now 850. I've apparently got some sort of perfect storm set of data points here, and it sounds like it may be unusual, at least.

JLK93: The first increase was for 14 points, and the second was for 10. I agree that maybe I crossed two thresholds. Since it's Saturday and it's too cold to actually go anywhere, I will ferret out AAOA and loan balances and post here.

I grabbed a pic for posterity :-)