Terminated

[vanillabean]

When Amex at Costco was replaced by Visa, Anywhere cards picked up where TrueEarnings cards left off. Citi wasn’t particularly explicit about the consequences to your credit file, so I was concerned about the old backdated card. Furthermore, it was an AU card, but FICO 8 supposedly counts it when it belongs to your same household spouse.

Time passed. I updated the AAoA to reflect the closed card alongside the new card. With AUs 9y 5m and without AUs 6y 7m. And then it suddenly dawned on me, obvious to anyone once you see it. If the Account Holder status says Terminated, there’s no longer Individual vs Authorized User. The card is yours.

So I added the card to the no AUs list, which increased the AAoA to 8y 3m. And wouldn’t you know it. When I pulled a fresh report from myFICO, it listed my AAoA as 8y 3m. So the whole thing wasn't so bad that it isn’t good for something on this dark and cold December day.

That was EQ. My TU is of little interest because it’s identical to EQ and myFICO for TU appears not to list AAoA. So I pulled an EX report, as one account is reported to EQ and TU, but not EX. The report’s AAoA again matched mine.

The thing to keep in mind that not all closed cards say card holder terminated; the Descriptions field may say closed, but the Account Holder is left intact. And as I was matching myFICO's AAoAs for DW to my calculations, myFICO counts a closed car loan with an Account Holder of Cosigner in AAoA for EQ, but apparently not for EX.

In the end, all AAoAs matched up, which is comforting to know. That’s not to say though that myFICO knows any more about FICO that we do. And who knows if my AUs are helping.

[805orbust]

That is neat. I wonder if a similar effect would be seen on an account that was closed by consumer. Very interesting.

[Revelate]

I don't know that can explicitly be ascertained: it certainly cannot from the myFICO interface (hate to beat a dead horse but the presentation isn't reference for anything, score and reason codes are the only thing we can be absolutely sure on).

The reason being, I don't think that a Terminated status shows up on anything except an AU tradeline.  Your own would either be closed by consumer or closed by credit grantor and I don't think there's really a third option.  As a result it's a bit unclear as a closed tradeline, though if I had to guess if it factored before it still does now, and maybe if it didn't before it would now as you suggest, maybe.

I'd be interested to know how that tradeline looks on the base report from the bureaus whenever you next get around to pulling them, interesting tidbit though!

[vanillabean]

I am open to Terminated applied only to AUs. So since FICO must know it too, the alternative to why my AAoA is eight years or more is that all AUs count for me, which myFICO will have none of!

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

I am open to Terminated applied only to AUs. So since FICO must know it too, the alternative to why my AAoA is eight years or more is that all AUs count for me, which myFICO will have none of!

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The only way I have figured out as to whether a AU (or HELOC for that matter) are counting is to have a balance on it and every other revolver zero and see if you take the known drop or not; if you do it doesn't count, if you don't it does.  I wish there were a better way for really trying to figure out whether an AU counts or not... I guess you could run the AU up to the limit with trivial utilization elsewhere but this might be an expensive way to do it.

myFICO just isn't reference for the algorithm, regardless if the same company produces the algorithm as produces the 3rd party presentation.  It may be as good as it gets as they will correct obvious inaccuracies when pointed out to them after conferring with the FICO business side experts that are available to them (happened twice to my knowlege with things I brought to their attention) but to think the anti-abuse algorithm of FICO 8 is implemented in the myFICO consumer product is unfortunately worse than suspect in my estimation. 

End of the day score shifts and reason codes unfortunately are still the standard as they always have been for the last near decade for trying to analyze things.

[vanillabean]

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Revelate wrote
The only way I have figured out as to whether a AU (or HELOC for that matter) are counting is to have a balance on it and every other revolver zero and see if you take the known drop or not; if you do it doesn't count, if you don't it does.

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Me too. I’ve been lining up a working scenario, which is now underway. The starting point was one revolving account reporting, which I zeroed and reported as such on EX this morning and EQ and TU in days to come, giving me the baseline. In a few days, an AU card will report, so we shall see if the scores stay or jump back up. Yet another a few days after, I’ll return to one of my own cards having a balance.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:

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Revelate wrote
The only way I have figured out as to whether a AU (or HELOC for that matter) are counting is to have a balance on it and every other revolver zero and see if you take the known drop or not; if you do it doesn't count, if you don't it does.

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Me too. I’ve been lining up a working scenario, which is now underway. The starting point was one revolving account reporting, which I zeroed and reported as such on EX this morning and EQ and TU in days to come, giving me the baseline. In a few days, an AU card will report, so we shall see if the scores stay or jump back up. Yet another a few days after, I’ll return to one of my own cards having a balance.

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Let me know how that goes please, I'm darned curious as to the anti-abuse algorithm and what gets counted as in vs. out for FICO 8.  If I had anyone in my life I'd beg for an AU just to go play with it haha, you know you're a credit score geek when...

[vanillabean]

BACKGROUND

The revolving accounts on my credit reports include card A (individual), B (authorized user) and A (individual), whose statement cuts take place in the evening of the 13th, 15th and 16th respectively. The starting point is one balance reported (card A). I have reports (Amex CreditSecure) for EQ, TU and EX, but scores for EQ only (myFICO Score Watch) starting at 850.

The 13th is not really the statement date for card A, but Chase reports cards with a zeroed balance at the time.

SCENARIO

During the day of the 13th, card A is zeroed; EX reports accordingly the next morning. EQ reports on the 15th, followed by SW alerting of a score drop to 844 the next day. TU reports on the 16th.

During the day of the 15th, card B is left with a balance; EX reports accordingly the next morning. EQ reports on the 17th, followed by SW alerting of no score change the next day. TU reports on the 18th.

During the day of the 16th, card A is left with a balance; EX reports accordingly in the morning of the 19th. EQ reports on the 20th, followed by SW alerting of a score increase to 850 the next day. TU reports on the 22th.

CONCLUSION

On the 16th, I pulled EX, which dropped from 848 to 836, with one AU card alone reporting a balance. I can only conclude that the card is not counted for utilization, as the score didn’t jump back up.

If this applies to all AU cards for all credit bureaus, an AAoA of eight years or more doesn’t appear to be necessary for a score of 850. I also just noticed someone at ~7.5 years.

On the 17th, I pulled EQ, which remained at the baseline of 844 with the AU card reporting, seemingly confirming that AU cards have no impact on utilization.

So either an AAoA of 6y 7m is enough for 850 (I did have an EQ of 850 two and a half years ago with a non-AU AAoA of six years), or FICO considers Terminated a non-AU giving me an AAoA of 8y 3m (the Terminated status of the card half a year ago did increase my EQ by ten points at the time).