@Revelate wrote:Well if you're game for doing some testing
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Amounts on reported tradelines matter for one portion of the revolving utilization calculation, and the number of revolving trades reporting a balance is a seperate calculation. There's also the aggregate revolving utilization which virtually everyone is familar with. FWIW I had a change from $3 to 73% balance report on a tradeline and my score didn't move at all, so I'm not surprised at your own findings on that. Others have suggested differently and my plan is to go get a silly $250 limit card and see if I can try to pin down if there are individual card utilization lines while keeping everything else fixed.
Amount of payment has been demonstrated not to factor into FICO; VantageScore does use a bunch of things that FICO doesn't, can't really pull any data from that other than to state they are different. All of the revolving utilization scorecard is instant-in-time as far as FICO goes. I've seen precisely one report of being bucketed where there was a 4 month lag between payment and score increase, but that's incredibly rare if it really existed at all. Everyone else's, whether they pay over time or pay lump sum, they get to the same point anecdotally.
Anyway for you if you're game: since it sounds like you have the 3B monitoring, just let $2 (reportedly some lenders zero out balances of $1, not tried that specifically but our purposes $1 vs $2 is irrelevant) report on every single revolving tradeline (cards and LOC's) on your report next month and watch your score change - you can fix it the very next month, but you'll get slapped likely to the tune of ~80-100 points on a FICO 8 score just for having a balance on all of your cards. I promise you it's a real thing in the model, and it would be interesting to see (Since we're starting to collect data points on it) how much you gain and lose as the cards report.
Closest I've seen to an 850 trying that was a ~798 at the time IIRC, went down to 720ish just from that experiment before fixing it next month for the expected complete recovery.
Hmm. Turns out my archives from last year already have this test in them.... (unintentionally).
I had pretty solid 850s for a chunk of 2014, including while 2 of 3 cards (and 2 of 2 AU cards) were reporting non-trivial dollar amounts (although low percentages).
But on 2014-05-18, briefly all cards did report a balance. And I dropped to 844 while all were reporting.
Recovered after it went back to 2 of 3. (Just in time to nuke it with the first of three new accounts...)
That's a rather sloppy analysis by the author pinning it on that without further information and it's not what people have found here or elsewhere. There's a lot more that goes into whether FICO 04 or FICO 8 is higher when run against an individual credit report. There's a non-trivial amount of useful information found here if you're curious and willing to do even minimal legwork.
Yes numbers could be score card dependent but that's a little unlikely with how bucketing works or at least we've seen it work. You have a limited number of open revolving trades, grab the data point, or look at JagerBomb's foreclosure thread where he disclosed his stats previously and his own balance tracking with FICO 04; would suggest the two of you were likely on identical scorecards before his housing crisis.
But test it yourself, 4/5 or 5/5 should still see a drop. How much off an 850 really depends on how much buffer an 850 has... but the near 800ish score to mid 720's did actually happen with $2 on 8/8 tradelines, and I assure you it was another pretty file.
[But test it yourself, 4/5 or 5/5 should still see a drop. How much off an 850 really depends on how much buffer an 850 has... but the near 800ish score to mid 720's did actually happen with $2 on 8/8 tradelines, and I assure you it was another pretty file].
Based on IV's experience last year (see below) reporting 5 of 5 cards (instead of normal 4 of 5) dropped her score to 844 from 850 until going back to 4 of 5 reporting.
I posted balances in May on 4 of 5 CCs, 1 of 1 AU CC and 1 of 1 AMEX charge card - total 6 of 7. Usually I report a balance on 3 of 5, 1 of 1 and 0 of 1, respectively. So based on IV's experience (if count related) I would anticipate a 6 point drop on my June Fico 8 from DC. (threshold count vs % - ?)
Hmm. Turns out my archives from last year already have this test in them.... (unintentionally).
I had pretty solid 850s for a chunk of 2014, including while 2 of 3 cards (and 2 of 2 AU cards) were reporting non-trivial dollar amounts (although low percentages).
But on 2014-05-18, briefly all cards did report a balance. And I dropped to 844 while all were reporting.
Recovered after it went back to 2 of 3. (Just in time to nuke it with the first of three new accounts...)
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:Received my June statement from Discover card earlier today.Fico 8 score remained at 850.
I had 4 of 5 credit cards reporting "non trivial" balances and 1 of 1 charge cards reporting a non trivial balance on my TransUnion summary report dated 6/8/2015. Overall credit utilization was 3.5%. Remaining balance on 15 year mortgage is 45%. AAoA is 15 years, youngest 4 years & oldest 31 years. Always pay in full every month.
I guess the 5 card threshold hypothesis proved false. Perhaps showing a balance on 100% instead of 80% of credit cards at once would trigger a drop. Not sure that the charge card has an impact - AMEX terms are pay in full every month for the charge card. However, it might help with credit mix.
My single inquiry (on my EQ credit report only) reached 1 year age this June. I stopped using my charge card mid June and all but 2 credit cards (one being the AU card). I will pull a MyFICO 3B report end of August to see what the impact of the age off and reduction in cards used is on my Fico 04 score (particularly the EQ one).
If you want to see your score drop, you need to raise utilization. Simple number of cards reporting isn't going to do it for your file, it is too well aged, and covers too many tradelines to be influenced by number of cards alone.
Thanks for the update.
@Revelate wrote:
But test it yourself, 4/5 or 5/5 should still see a drop. How much off an 850 really depends on how much buffer an 850 has... but the near 800ish score to mid 720's did actually happen with $2 on 8/8 tradelines, and I assure you it was another pretty file.
Was there any comment on the age of the accounts? Were there several months of showing only 1 card reporting, then 8 of a sudden? I'm not doubting this happened, just looking for other perspective on what the file contains (or if it doesn't contain a long history) to make it so volatile.
