great, good, not so good

[athensguy]

July 15, 2008, I had 747 on TU and 755 on EQ

Sept. 17, 2008, I have 735 on TU and 725 on EQ

EQ 07/15 (755):
Great, Good, Good, Good
Age: 11
AAoA: 5
Util: 29% (You've limited the use of available credit)
Accounts with Balance: 6

EQ 09/17 (725):
Great, Very Good, Good, Good
Age: 11-1
AAoA: 4
Util: 28% (You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit)
Accounts with Balance: 5

Difference: An 11 year old account (same age as my file, I have another one the same age) fell off, reducing AAoA. Util is higher than TU because an account balance hasn't updated. It was a pretty traumatic drop from 772-->725 when that account fell.

TU 07/15 (747):
Great, Good, Good, Not Good
Age: 11
AAoA: 5
Util: 29% (You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit.)
Accounts with Balance: 6

TU 09/17 (735):
Great, Very Good, Good, Good
Age: 11-2
AAoA: 5
Util: 24% (You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit.)
Accounts with Balance: 5

Difference: I have no idea why this dropped. It seems to have improved in several ways, and didn't lose any accounts. Doesn't look like any bucket changing stats happened.

[Anonymous]

I must admit they baffle me.

TU  727

Good, very good, very good, not good = very good 

Util 2%

I have BK that is almost 9

Affecting my score: You have no installment loans ( am I supposed to buy something I don't need for a score change?)

EQ  698 (has not changed in 9 months)

Good, Very Good, Very good, Great = good

698 is not good --it is credit that needs improvement. (for interest rate purposes)

I have 6 open accounts and 9 closed including 2 car loans.  Average age of accounts--4 years.

EX  717

Good--no specifics as they do not provide this to Fico.

I have given up.  As Tim says, "understanding fico scores is an oxymoron.

Message Edited by casinoannie97 on 09-17-2008 04:29 PM

[athensguy]

I'm mostly confused why my TU went down when nothing changed except util went down a little.

47 points seems to be a serious drop for a couple months of average age on EQ, too.

[haulingthescoreup]

5 years is one of the break points for age. Welcome to your current bucket, for the next 13 days, at any rate.

[Anonymous]

Do you mean 5 years average age?

I just got an alert from EQ saying one of my accounts went to 37100% utilization.  The cl is 6500 and I owe 372.  To me this is not even 10%. 

HELP!!!!!  I can't believe I pay for this.

My average just went to 4 years.  Does this mean anything?  Are there other break points?

Thanks HTSC

[haulingthescoreup]

Don't worry about the message. They're not saying that's your util; they're saying that's the percentage increase in your balance (one of the triggers for a score alert.) I don't know where they get these figures --I get crazy ones like that when my previous balance was $0! You can't figure a percentage increase from $0, sheesh. Crazy Equifax.

Sure will make you jump when you first read it, though!

I'm still scratching my head on the age jumps, but it seems pretty sure that 5 years is one of them, both for AAoA and longest. I think it's 2 years, 5 years, 8 years, 12? 13? years, and 18? 19? years. (I need to take some afternoon and go back over old posts, because someone once sent in some convincing evidence about the 12 vs 13 thing.) And it's the month that you actually hit year 2, year 5, etc. that you improve.

Since the formulas look at both average and overall age, this is why you can be good and bad on age at the same time. I'm at 19+ (20 on EX) for longest, but I'm also at 3y 7m on AAoA, and they don't take this combination kindly. Any additional account I open will just re-age me downward again. So your average age will get better a lot sooner than mine.