TransUnion "Too Few Credit Cards" (??)

[atarvuzdar]

On the MyFico app, anytime my TransUnion score changes lately, it lists "too few credit cards" as the second negative factor impacting my score. The language reads: 

"Compared to other people with a similar age of credit history, the number of revolving credit card accounts you have is low. Actively and responsibly managing a moderate number of credit cards is generally considered less risky by most lenders."

I have 12 credit cards and my AoOA is 13.5 years. I'm perplexed by the very thought of 12 credit cards not being enough for my credit history!!

I could see something like this popping up if MyFico was scraping the bottom of the barrel and couldn't find other reasons to ding me but my util on both CC and installment loans (student loan) are both high (all CCs were recently paid to $0, just waiting for the updates to start rolling in!).

Interestingly, I checked the same TransUnion alerts on the MyFico website and it doesn't list too few credit cards as a factor in the very same score update. 

Anyone have any idea what could be going on here?

[Anonymous]

It's an "amusement" reason code... One thread here: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/MyFico-Reasons-Amusement/td-p/4939010 -- one thing to note in this link is the TU reason codes on mobile may be different than the ones on the desktop login!  Who knows why this is.

Part of FICO's offering to lenders is the option for them to be able to pull reason codes for AA -- reason codes that FICO has vetted against the various laws regarding notifications.  So don't always assume the reason code is actually a reason for anything other than abiding the law.  Those reason codes aren't really useful for us as consumers always, but they're very useful for lenders when they AA and are required to give a reason for it.

The law demands that lenders give a reason for AA, but it doesn't demand that lenders give the real reason for AA.

It's like breaking up with someone and giving them a reason code of "I really don't like Mondays" -- has nothing to do with the breakup, but it's definitely truthful, just has nothing to do with the AA in the relationship.

Basically -- ignore some of FICO's reason codes.  They're not always useful.

[atarvuzdar]

Thank you! That's exactly what happened here with me. Really appreciate it!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a classic case of a site trying to make someone believe that they would see a benefit by adding another card and hoping that they'll app for a card using a link through their site for a little kickback...

[marty56]

I would expect that type of comment on FAKO scores.  IMHO there is no such thing as long as you have one CC.

[Anonymous]

I suppose I could understand the comment if one had only 1-2 cards, as a scoring benefit can be had with 3+ cards.  But, even that isn't a major difference.

[Revelate]

If this is FICO 04 it's the same reason code as too many.

If this is the default FICO 8, it's possibly just a bad parse as we do NOT get good reason codes for that set of scores unfortunately in the current product.

Check the additional score versions and see if it shows up anywhere else, 12 cards isn't something to get worried over.  Would second the suggestion of looking at the web version ones; the ones that show up when scores change should be FICO 8... sadly need to be specific as to where you're getting the reason code from especially with TU here.