"Short Credit History" on my Action list from MyFico

[Anonymous]

I am a little confused when my action list says that I have a "short" credit history but then says that my oldest account is 20 years old and the average age is 7 years. The entry also says that most of the "High Achievers" have an oldest account around 19 years and an average account age of between 6 and 10 years. How can I have both a "short" credit history and yet be exactly what is recommended for "high Achievers"?

[llecs]

Welcome to the forums!

FICO scoring is very complex. You are placed into one of many scoring buckets. Scoring buckets group individuals together based on their past payment history, length of history, whether or not they have new credit, etc. The advantage to this is that you aren't directly compared to someone who has a short history, or someone with multiple baddies and collections isn't directly compared to someone with a good history (sound as if you have that).

Based on your scoring bucket, you are compared directly to those who have a long history, and a 7 yr AAoA isn't that bad. Based on your bucket, of those that happen to have a long history, you have the shortest. As your history ages and as those who have a longer history app for new credit or lose their old accounts and drop back in age, that negative comment found in your CR will go away and your score will slowly rise.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I am a little confused when my action list says that I have a "short" credit history but then says that my oldest account is 20 years old and the average age is 7 years. The entry also says that most of the "High Achievers" have an oldest account around 19 years and an average account age of between 6 and 10 years. How can I have both a "short" credit history and yet be exactly what is recommended for "high Achievers"?

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Unless you have a very high score the system must return reasons (plus and minus) for your score. When the system spews back reasons like this it is scraping the bottom of the barrel for something to report. There is nothing wrong here.

[jackg]

patrick77,

I agree 100% with creditwherecreditisdue. Just ignore it.

[haulingthescoreup]

Yep, it just means that compared with others with 20 years oldest account, your 7 years AAoA is a bit on the short side.

If that is the first-listed derog, you're in good shape. This is the equivalent of an ex-GF or ex-BF saying, "And furthermore, umm, umm, your shoes are ugly!"