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What is keeping my score down?

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Anonymous
Not applicable

What is keeping my score down?

So here are the details. Oldest account 12 years old. Average age of account 4 years, 8 months. Five credit/charge cards on my report, all open. One of them is an American Express platinum. My American Express platinum and my Discover card were opened 7/19 and 5/19 respectively. Other three cards are 12, 6ish, and 3.5ish years old. Overall Credit utilization is at 1%. Three out of my four credit cards have a zero balance. The card with the balance is less than 5% utilization. I have a balance reporting on my American Express platinum but that’s just the monthly expenses since I use that for most of my charging(and paid off a couple times a month) and it doesn’t affect my credit utilization so I don’t know if it really matters. Only 2 HP’s, both from the Discover and American Express openings 6-8 months ago. No collections or charge offs or anything like that. One 30 day late payment on 6/18 that was made current right after I found out about it. I have no installment loan history so no mortgage history or car loan history.

Right now, with the history as described, my Experian FICO 8 is 714. According to the Experian FICO simulator, if I continue to age my accounts, make payments on time, for the next two years my score will be 734. Both of those seem a little bit low to me. In two years my oldest account will be 14 years, AAoA will be 6.7 years, five total charge/credit accounts (all still open), No negative impact from credit utilization, the two hard pulls will be over 2.5 years old so no negative impact from those. My only one “baddie” will be a a (at that time)3.5 year old 30 day late on a account that has been current since.

I know I don’t have mortgage/auto loan history and that will hurt me but I see data points of people with super thin files, only a couple Credit card accounts, total credit history less than three years, bumping up into the mid/high 700s. Is a 3.5-year-old 30 day late on an otherwise squeaky clean file going to knock me down that much to where I could only get into the mid 730s with the file I described above as what it will exist in two years? Furthermore, how much do you think that 30 day late is screwing me on my current score?
14 REPLIES 14
Girlzilla88
Valued Contributor

Re: What is keeping my score down?

Honestly I think it is that 30 day late that is hurting your score more than anything.      Can you maybe call and see if you can get it removed if it is your only late you ever had and you corrected it asap?!     If they won't it will take 2 years after you having it for it to start hurting your score less and then it will stay on your information 7 up to 10 years Smiley Sad  (But some are nice and fall off around 7 years or a little early)







Message 2 of 15
Girlzilla88
Valued Contributor

Re: What is keeping my score down?

If it was on 6/18 that means you have to wait until 7/20 for it to start hurting a little less... 







Message 3 of 15
Revelate
Moderator Emeritus

Re: What is keeping my score down?

We don't really have good data around late aging unfortunately, a lot of the old assertions were wrong: a 30D late will impact your score the entire time that it's on there if for no other reason it buckets you into the bottom of the top 8 scorecards.

 

You should get an installment loan, find some lender you can play reindeer games with (SSL trick) and go tack on another 25ish points to your file.

 

Secondly you have new revolvers (read as <1 year when we're talking FICO 8) and that's probably another 20ish.  Speaking revolvers, you might actually get a few points if you let that Amex report $0 TBH, certainly if you were cleaning up for a mortgage swing you'd want that account at $0.

 

Finally, I mentioned scorecards before; new files <3 years or whatever are on their own set of scorecards and the top end score there is somewhat above 800... whereas I'd be surprised even with an absurdly optimized file if a 30D late can get there.

 

I can state that 750-760 is absolutely possible with a 30D late, before EQ/EX whacked a 30D (more recent than yours actually) tradeline for me I was sitting between them and I wasn't fully clean as far as inquiries / new accounts either and I do have a CFA and ugly installment utilization so maybe I could've gotten up near 800, but it's a big maybe.

 

My 60D late on TU isn't budging but a 60D late also banishes me to the bottom 4 scorecards (even if it's probably on the best of the 4 now or will be soon whenever the late is no longer marked "recent" which should be sometime this year I expect).  I don't know what the top score is there but an otherwise optimized TU w/60D late, other than ugly installment utilization as new accounts don't rate on that scorecard, is 760+ and that's with a 60D <2 years old.  




        
Message 4 of 15
SouthJamaica
Mega Contributor

Re: What is keeping my score down?


@Anonymous wrote:
So here are the details. Oldest account 12 years old. Average age of account 4 years, 8 months. Five credit/charge cards on my report, all open. One of them is an American Express platinum. My American Express platinum and my Discover card were opened 7/19 and 5/19 respectively. Other three cards are 12, 6ish, and 3.5ish years old. Overall Credit utilization is at 1%. Three out of my four credit cards have a zero balance. The card with the balance is less than 5% utilization. I have a balance reporting on my American Express platinum but that’s just the monthly expenses since I use that for most of my charging(and paid off a couple times a month) and it doesn’t affect my credit utilization so I don’t know if it really matters. Only 2 HP’s, both from the Discover and American Express openings 6-8 months ago. No collections or charge offs or anything like that. One 30 day late payment on 6/18 that was made current right after I found out about it. I have no installment loan history so no mortgage history or car loan history.

Right now, with the history as described, my Experian FICO 8 is 714. According to the Experian FICO simulator, if I continue to age my accounts, make payments on time, for the next two years my score will be 734. Both of those seem a little bit low to me. In two years my oldest account will be 14 years, AAoA will be 6.7 years, five total charge/credit accounts (all still open), No negative impact from credit utilization, the two hard pulls will be over 2.5 years old so no negative impact from those. My only one “baddie” will be a a (at that time)3.5 year old 30 day late on a account that has been current since.

I know I don’t have mortgage/auto loan history and that will hurt me but I see data points of people with super thin files, only a couple Credit card accounts, total credit history less than three years, bumping up into the mid/high 700s. Is a 3.5-year-old 30 day late on an otherwise squeaky clean file going to knock me down that much to where I could only get into the mid 730s with the file I described above as what it will exist in two years? Furthermore, how much do you think that 30 day late is screwing me on my current score?

I'm sure it's the late payment that's keeping your score down. I would send verification letters to the bureaus periodically until it gets removed.


Total revolving limits 569520 (505320 reporting) FICO 8: EQ 699 TU 696 EX 682




Message 5 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What is keeping my score down?

I would agree, I think it’s probably my 30 day late from 6/2018 That’s keeping my score down. The interesting thing is I signed up for the subscription credit service from Experian in April 2019. At the time, I had a small balance but it was above the utilization thresholds(50%) because I didn’t have a large overall credit line so my score was 669. This is prior to the Discover and the American Express. The Experian FICO simulator at that time said that if I paid off everything over a 24 month period(basically going to a zero utilization and aging my account through April 2021), my estimated FICO score would be 811, even with the 30 day late on my account. The only thing that is changed in the last nine months has been 2 hard pulls and 2 new accounts. If this was credit karma and some vantage score or score estimator I would just write it off but this is a paid service directly from Experian with a FICO score simulator. Just seems weird that adding two new accounts would have that much of an impact. Or maybe it shifted me onto a different scorecard.
Message 6 of 15
Nomad3
Frequent Contributor

Re: What is keeping my score down?

My 30d late caused a 20-40pt subtraction
AoOA 10y+
AoYA 1m
AAoA ~4y
30d late: 6y10m old

See my sig for score differences. My 3 scores were within 1pt of each other for the longest, 2/3 excluded the derog early, 1 of those 2 has 2x inquiries <1y.

The inquiries + the derog are probably what's happening with yours
Message 7 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What is keeping my score down?

When you are in the top eight scorecards and you get a new account, yes you have a scorecard reassignment. And it lasts for a year at least on version 8.

So yes the new accounts and hard pulls are holding you down but that 30 day late is going to give you a ceiling. And I don’t care where the simulator comes from, don’t count on it.
Message 8 of 15
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: What is keeping my score down?

Expect some points 7/19 when the new accounts become a year old and the HPs become unscoreable.

But you need to get a loan and do the SSL trick. And remember you’re going to have a ceiling until you can get rid of that 30 day late.
Message 9 of 15
SouthJamaica
Mega Contributor

Re: What is keeping my score down?


@Anonymous wrote:
I would agree, I think it’s probably my 30 day late from 6/2018 That’s keeping my score down. The interesting thing is I signed up for the subscription credit service from Experian in April 2019. At the time, I had a small balance but it was above the utilization thresholds(50%) because I didn’t have a large overall credit line so my score was 669. This is prior to the Discover and the American Express. The Experian FICO simulator at that time said that if I paid off everything over a 24 month period(basically going to a zero utilization and aging my account through April 2021), my estimated FICO score would be 811, even with the 30 day late on my account. The only thing that is changed in the last nine months has been 2 hard pulls and 2 new accounts. If this was credit karma and some vantage score or score estimator I would just write it off but this is a paid service directly from Experian with a FICO score simulator. Just seems weird that adding two new accounts would have that much of an impact. Or maybe it shifted me onto a different scorecard.

The simulators are not meaningful. None of them.


Total revolving limits 569520 (505320 reporting) FICO 8: EQ 699 TU 696 EX 682




Message 10 of 15
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