cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

clean file and utilization

tag
Sbrooks1
Valued Contributor

clean file and utilization

Had to take my AMEX to 54 % and Aggregate 26%, Exp dropped 30 points, this is my only clean file. The others still have a CO and a 30 day late from 2010. I will be curious to see if dirty files drop more or less than my clean file.  Did get > 5000 CLI which has not reported so that should help. 

Message 1 of 22
21 REPLIES 21
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: clean file and utilization

Without providing a starting point of both your Amex and aggregate utilization, we have no way of knowing if you started at 1%/1% or 53%/25% or somewhere in between.  Providing that starting data will make your data point much more useful to those seeking to predict a score drop based on a utilization increase.

Message 2 of 22
Sbrooks1
Valued Contributor

Re: clean file and utilization

Good point , starting Amex was <1 % and aggregate 4%.
Message 3 of 22
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: clean file and utilization

Gotcha.  So with respect to aggregate utilization you crossed 1 threshold and on your single trade line you crossed 3 thresholds.  How many total revolvers do you have on your reports?

Message 4 of 22
Sbrooks1
Valued Contributor

Re: clean file and utilization

7--all at zero but Citi and Amex . Can't even think about what happened to mortgage scores. What are the thresholds? I was hoping I had only crossed two. Aggregate will go down as soon as CLI reports , unfortunately not on AMex . I knew it would happen, didn't quite think 30 points on my best file
Message 5 of 22
Sbrooks1
Valued Contributor

Re: clean file and utilization

Will pay citi off before next statement , but no way with the Amex. Would I do better mortgage score wise to do it that way and leave only the one reporting but at a high uti, or try to get citi to 10 and Amex to 30
Message 6 of 22
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: clean file and utilization


@Anonymous wrote:

Gotcha.  So with respect to aggregate utilization you crossed 1 threshold and on your single trade line you crossed 3 thresholds.  How many total revolvers do you have on your reports?


Hey BBS!  That may be more than anyone knows for sure.

 

As far as individual U goes, I am very skeptical that 10% is any kind of threshold for penalty, and certainly we do not know it to be one.  I am much more open to the possibilty that there may be thresholds at 30% or higher.  (E.g. 30% and 50%, though they could be other than that, and might vary according to scorecard.)

 

Likewise I am not sure that there is only one threshold for total U between 5% and 26%.  You are probably thinking that there is only one at 8.99%.  And there's a strong amount of evidence that this is where penalties begin (for total U).  But to say with confidence that a total U of 11% and total U of 26% has exactly the same penalty across all scorecards (i.e. that there is only one threshold in this area, namely at 8.99%) is again more than I think anyone knows for sure.

 

I would not be surprised if some scorecards lose a bit more at least one more place between 10% and 26%... e.g. at 20% say.

 

Part of the reason it's hard to be certain (or even reasonably confident) about a lot of testing issues is that FICO doesn't state for you, when you pull your score: "And you are in scorecard #5".  Thus the scorecard-dependent nature of scores is difficult to gauge, except to say that it would a bit odd if there wasn't one.

 

That said, I think it is always cool for people to do their best to try to backwards engineer the algorithms.  It's just that we shouldn't be more confident than we have solid grounds for being.

 

PS.  TT has made some very interesting observations about individual U, one of which is that Individual U breakpoints may depend on what your TOTAL util is.  That is to say, a person with a total U of 1-5% may have a lot more freedom to take a particular card up to 48% or even 55% with no penalty -- more freedom than a person with a total U of 15%, 25%, or 35%.

 

PPS.  Despite my general reservations, I remain very excited about your plan to obtain a small CL on one of your cards.  Some really beautiful testing of individual U could be done, at least based on the assumption that a person has a total U of 1-5%.  And the fact that your three reports happen to be completely clean, very mildly dirty, and substantially dirty will make your results even more revealing.  Can't wait!

Message 7 of 22
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: clean file and utilization

Very true that I may have made some generalizations there.  I'd like to read more about what TT was looking into and some of the data he may have on the subject.

 

Based on the 30 point drop for the OP, we can only venture to guess why [with respect to utilization].  Was it completely based on the aggregate utilization change (with no impact from the individual > 50% trade line) or was it a combination of the two?  No way to know for sure.  What we do know is that aggregate utilization matters more and has stronger scoring impact over an individual trade line.  That said, the OP moving from single-digit utilization to mid-20's percentage wise on utilization without question crossed a threshold at some point.  I think assuming ~10% is a fair assessment, but certainly it could be somewhere else or possibly in more than one place for all we know Smiley Happy

Message 8 of 22
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: clean file and utilization

You have no idea how happy you are gonna make me if and when you get that small CL on one of your cards.  I think your results will be WAY interesting. 

 

One reason is that your primary scoring instrument is Credit Check Total.  So you will be ruling out already a lot of the common sources of dubious data, which is people waiting until they are "alerted" of a score change, and then drawing some kind of inference, based on the untrue and natural belief that their score has not been changing until they got that alert and that the accompanying text with the alert is the reason for their score change.

 

Instead you wil be actively taking snapshots of your data, that include a single unified pull of all three scores with all three reports drawn at the same instant.  Much better.

 

My guess is you will set up your testing of individual U with a solid well defined start place (e.g. exactly one card reporting a positive balance, all others at $0, total U at 1% and individual U at 1-5%) and then keeping total U in the 1-4% range while individual U goes up.  Be cool to see it go from 1% to 48% in one go and see if there is no score change.  If there is, fascinating -- if not, also fascinating!

Message 9 of 22
Sbrooks1
Valued Contributor

Re: clean file and utilization

Ok guys you like each other ! Awesome, but do either of you gave advice on my question to have one high uti report vs two low and medium uti for mortgage score !
Message 10 of 22
Advertiser Disclosure: The offers that appear on this site are from third party advertisers from whom FICO receives compensation.