The Experian FICO simulator...

[elixerin]

Is anyone surprised that its actually extremely accurate? or maybe i was misinformed when reading about how inefficient a tool this is.. figured id share that over the past month i used it for a variety of metrics even the utilization ranges posted on the forums and right there in front of my eyes im seeing a significantly higher simulated boost right at 30->28% vs a much smaller simulated boost from 32->30%, and a few others.. means water right? So to test any accuracy i just simulated what i myself had already paid and was simulating prior to when its expected to report, and to my surprise.. while the balances werent exact but the utilization was, we were just a point off from the simulated score after a overall UTI drop from 87% to 1%, i also think its cool that if you put the whole balance you owe in the simulator vs 1% you are shown the penalized points of zero balances as written amongst here...

Why are people against this tool and its validity to be useful? I guess besides utilization there are a million other factors and simulations for such of which i could not test and that may be where all the distrust is, thoughts?

[MrFiah]

When score simulators are being discussed, to me, it's generally accepted that the ones on Credit Karma, WalletHub, NerdWallet,etc are being referenced.  These are known to be wildly inaccurate even though they are using the same scoring model, Vantage 3.0.  When I have played around with them, putting in the same info has given me a 30 point range of scores from one to the next.  Also, sometimes an action that the simulators predict to help end up hurting and vice versa.

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@elixerin wrote:

Is anyone surprised that its actually extremely accurate? or maybe i was misinformed when reading about how inefficient a tool this is.. figured id share that over the past month i used it for a variety of metrics even the utilization ranges posted on the forums and right there in front of my eyes im seeing a significantly higher simulated boost right at 30->28% vs a much smaller simulated boost from 32->30%, and a few others.. means water right? So to test any accuracy i just simulated what i myself had already paid and was simulating prior to when its expected to report, and to my surprise.. while the balances werent exact but the utilization was, we were just a point off from the simulated score after a overall UTI drop from 87% to 1%, i also think its cool that if you put the whole balance you owe in the simulator vs 1% you are shown the penalized points of zero balances as written amongst here...

Why are people against this tool and its validity to be useful? I guess besides utilization there are a million other factors and simulations for such of which i could not test and that may be where all the distrust is, thoughts?

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[FireMedic1]

Its a rough guestimate to make comparisions on what certain moves will do as a baseline. Each persons credit file is like the fingerprint on our index finger. No one matches. Never has never will. 2 people could have the same card and credit line and util%. But the 1 person that has 5 yrs of age metrics over the other person will have a higher score. Even if it came down to older AAoA's alone. Age wins. EX or MyFICO simulators are FICO based whereas the free sites go by Vantage which isnt even close and can have wild swings +/_ by many points.

[GZG]

The FICO score simulators, IMO, are a nice supplement to somebody who has done enough reading on the primer thread to have a basic understanding of how a credit event will impact a specific credit profile. 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Credit-Scoring-Primer-pub-5-17-20/m-p/60... 

They pass basic sanity checks where when you input events with pretty much known outcomes, they produce reasonable, if not completely accurate results. 

Paying off installment loan to 9%? GOOD

Paying off installment loan completely? BAD

New Account? BAD. 

Missed payment/Collection? REALLY BAD 

I don't think they are fed every credit profile with every possible credit change in existence to produce a super model that's never wrong, but they aren't egregiously bad like the vantage ones are.