Thoughts regarding how I lost points?

[Trudy]

I have a lazy credit file, never much happening, all accounts report in block between the 26th and 5th (w/the exception of my newest account w/Amazon that seems to update twice, 15th & 30th) and absolutely positive after review of my daily EX reports that other than age the only change from 1/27 to 1/28 is:

Balance update:

1/5 through 1/27 - 1 bankcard reporting with a balance of $9.99, IND - 0.11%, AGG - 0.01%. 

1/28 - 1 bankcard reporting with a balance of $482.26, IND - 17.22%, AGG - 0.50%

Lost points on all EX scores provided with the exception of bankcard 3.  Although 1/27 shows 0% it's been rounded down as myFICO reports shows 1% and definitely no AZ penalty. No closed acct's dropped off,  no change in CL, no INQ's added.  Clean.

Not concerned about scores but brought it up because I'm pretty sure I'm aware of % thresholds and it's been stated for as long as I've been a part of this community that AGG is 8.9% and IND is 28.9%.  The only thing I can think of is there is an IND threshold or the lesser known dollar threshold is now $400 for me.  I've been above this $$ amount in the past and don't recall any fluctuation in EX scores. 

Any thoughts?

@Anonymous 

[thornback]

I receive a 1-3 point penalty when indv util goes above 8.9% (but below 28.9%) while also azeo with a clean report.  

It was always my understanding that 8.9% was an individual threshold as will as agg.

[Trudy]

Thanks for your response.  I believed that as well but many have strongly supported 28.9% for individual.  I can't see any other reason for the change.

[Trudy]

Thought I'd double check to see if after all these years I've misinterpreted statements regarding the individual threshold.  Didn't take long to find several posts that reference 28.9% or 29% is the lowest for individual outside of a possible 5% and 8.9% or 9% is for AGG. 

Here's a more recent one with many comments and several links with this information.  I know I'm not trying to convince you just thought I'd share 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Most-Meaningful-Thresholds/m-p/6177152

[thornback]

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@Trudy wrote:

Thought I'd double check to see if after all these years I've misinterpreted statements regarding the individual threshold.  Didn't take long to find several posts that reference 28.9% or 29% is the lowest for individual outside of a possible 5% and 8.9% or 9% is for AGG. 

Here's a more recent one with many comments and several links with this information.  I know I'm not trying to convince you just thought I'd share 

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Most-Meaningful-Thresholds/m-p/6177152

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Good point - Is it possible that 28% for indv. is usually referenced becuase it is accompanied by a significant penalty?  Crossing 8.9% is fairly insignificant scorewise --  but crossing 28.9% will yield a much more noticable penalty.    

When reading Birdman's scoring primer,  he references major recognized Individual revolving utilization thresholds  beginning at 30% (post 3 in the thread).

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/General-Scoring-Primer-and-Version-8-Mas...

I feel like the term 'major' is doing some lifting there...

I think i've read about 8.9% existing as an individual threshold since I began reading this board in 2017, but it was never fully advocated as it was a minor penalty and 28.9% was always the big one.   But when we advise folks to implement AZEO to squeeze out every possible point for mortgage purposes,  it's always one card at less than 8.9% (even if having that one card at 28.9% would still keep agg below 8.9%), right?   

[Trudy]

I don't think I paid much attention to this part of the Primer when it was originally started based on me thinking I knew the long held belief about individual thresholds and now see what you mean here and even the statements regarding preparing for a loan.  I guess I never combined the 2 as they seldom are include in the same post or posts regarding thresholds in general.  I know there are some who swear there is no difference when under 30% but that could simply apply to them or not be related to the AZEO method. Interesting.

Maybe I've been out of the loop too long 

[Anonymous]

I believe it's been further determined that the actual threshold points are at the half-percentage (x.5%) due to rounding rather than x.9%.

[thornback]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I believe it's been further determined that the actual threshold points are at the half-percentage (x.5%) due to rounding rather than x.9%.

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Oh... makes sense, good to know. 

And your take on an individual card threshold existing at 8.5%?  

[Anonymous]

I personally have not observed one.  I will add though that for many once you get to 8%-10% utilization on a single card if it's a $5k+ limit card (which many on this forum have) you are easily entering the realm of raw dollars being a new variable introduced into the mix. 

For example, if $500 is a raw dollars threshold on a given file/scorecard and someone is playing around with AZEO with a $5k limit card, they may move from (say) a $415 balance to (say) a $520 balance.  In doing so, they may see a slight score change and [wrongly] assume that they must have crossed a utilization percentage threshold when it was actually a dollars-related threshold.

IMO the only real way of testing it is with tiny limit cards (like a $500 limit) to more or less remove the raw dollars variable from the discussion.  I think the lowest reported dollar threshold we've seen on this forum is $174 or $176, something like that... so I guess even a $1000 limit or $1500 limit card would suffice for testing. 

If a tiny limit card isn't an option for testing, one would have to test very specific dollar values.  Using the $500 number again as discussed above, one could move from $499 reported to $501 reported (or $495 to $505, same difference) as both utilization percentages would be rounded to the same integer amount, thus eliminating that variable of percentage and isolating it to the dollars.

That's sort of how I'd approach it anyway, but others may have additional ideas.

[thornback]

Interesting. Thank you @Anonymous 

Well @Trudy, certainly seems your initial reasoning may be spot on.  The times I thought I was penalized for crossing indv 8.5% may have actually been a dollar amount threshold...