My FICO Score dropped 17 points

bartmc said:
I had this card for several years. I got it when my score was "average". They snuck a fee in there on me a few years ago when the consumer protection act went through. Never had any fees then poof fees.

CC companies are all slimy. I have no need or desire to engage in business with them. I'm certainly not going to spend any time shopping around.
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The banking industry is what it is...you can read stories about it in the Bible. There's nothing that's happened in the last 8 years that's really any different than what's gone on before. If it's true that you have "no need or desire to engage in business with them", then you shouldn't care what your FICA score is.

I've had my no-fee primary card for 25 years. If they add a fee, I'll close it and get a different one.

Life's too short to get emotional about that sorta stuff.
 
bartmc said:
I your house was paid off, would you mortgage it in order to invest?
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This is exactly why I choose not to pay off my house today. I have a ridiculously low mortgage rate, and have seen many times that rate returned in the market over the time I've had my mortgage. It would have been foolish of me to pay it off.

Could the market collapse tomorrow, and make me look foolish for not paying? Yes. But I'm still relatively young and expect I'd have time to recover those losses in the long run, just like I weathered the last crash.

Would I take out a mortgage to invest (in the stock market), if my home was already paid off? Probably not. But if interest rates were still insanely low, and real estate prices were reasonable, I would likely buy more property...using a mortgage. :D
 
Getting back to the OP, we were shopping for a mortgage when we bought a new house. When we noticed a drop in our score, we inquired and found that it was lowered because they were getting too many requests from the banks. Evidently just asking for your score lowers it!!
 
Bill Jennings said:
Bingo.
Credit cards used wisely can be your friend. :yes:
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I have many thousands dollars of PC hardware and expensive camera gear that was purchased on 12, 24, and 36 month "0% Interest" programs. Of course, the issuers were JUST WAITING for me to miss a payment by ONE DAY and the rate would have increased to 27+% and back to Day 1. Never happened!

HR
 
Jim_R said:
The banking industry is what it is...you can read stories about it in the Bible. There's nothing that's happened in the last 8 years that's really any different than what's gone on before. If it's true that you have "no need or desire to engage in business with them", then you shouldn't care what your FICA score is.

I've had my no-fee primary card for 25 years. If they add a fee, I'll close it and get a different one.

Life's too short to get emotional about that sorta stuff.
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I don't care what my FICO score is, I just found it to be an insanely dumbass algorithim that dinks you 17 points for paying off the final $2.00 on a credit card.
 
bartmc said:
I don't care what my FICO score is, I just found it to be an insanely dumbass algorithim that dinks you 17 points for paying off the final $2.00 on a credit card.
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It didn't dink you because you paid it off, it dinked you because you closed it and increased your debt to credit ratio.
 
upstateny said:
Getting back to the OP, we were shopping for a mortgage when we bought a new house. When we noticed a drop in our score, we inquired and found that it was lowered because they were getting too many requests from the banks. Evidently just asking for your score lowers it!!
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If it's for the same purpose within a short period of time it should have no effect..
 
I read a biography of Max Born, the physicist, a couple years ago.

One excerpt impressed me, and I just found it online. I think it shows how inflation favors debtors and harms creditors:

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dmspilot said:
It didn't dink you because you paid it off, it dinked you because you closed it and increased your debt to credit ratio.
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My available credit was $0.00 and outstanding balance of $2.00. Card has been closed for over a year. Credit score decline was attributed to the final pay off by MyFICO.

Here's what makes me a deadbeat.

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Jim_R said:
This is tin-foil-hat, midnight-AM-talk-radio-level paranoia.
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I know like taxing health care benefits! :rofl::rofl: That'll never happen! :rofl:
Never underestimate what the government and IRS will come up with to "enhance revenue" They've been talking about killing the mortgage deduction for several years, also dumping LIFO, I am not paranoid, but I don't see many limits to what can be taxed. :mad2::mad2:
 
A 17 point drop hardly makes you a deadbeat. You changed something that's an input to an algorithm. You'd expect there to be some effect from that. It's not a big deal.
 
N747JB said:
I know like taxing health care benefits! :rofl::rofl: That'll never happen! :rofl:
Never underestimate what the government and IRS will come up with to "enhance revenue" They've been talking about killing the mortgage deduction for several years, also dumping LIFO, I am not paranoid, but I don't see many limits to what can be taxed. :mad2::mad2:
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Crap gets "talked about" all the time. Some of it comes to pass, and some of it doesn't. But in the end, life always manages to go on, and the world doesn't end.
 
Jim_R said:
A 17 point drop hardly makes you a deadbeat. You changed something that's an input to an algorithm. You'd expect there to be some effect from that. It's not a big deal.
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Doncha think that paying off a $2.00 balance on a closed credit card probably shouldn't push the needle at all?

Like I said, I don't care, but the whole thing is silly.
 
Jim_R said:
Crap gets "talked about" all the time. Some of it comes to pass, and some of it doesn't. But in the end, life always manages to go on, and the world doesn't end.
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Which is what the turkey said early in November.

And while I mean that light heartedly and am not grinding any particular political axe, sometimes exceedingly rare events do happen.

John
 
It hardly matters what your credit score is when you have no debt. What matters is that you feel good.
 
My Uncle was a wealthy man , had accounts in many local banks. One bank plugged him into their new algorithm and decided he was too old for his line of credit. He simply walked in and closed his account. ( this was after discussing his history and profitibility with the new goomers) Needless to say they noticed when he finally withdrew his support from their bank. Wanted to wine and dine him back, but he could see the future with a mindless entity was pointless.
I learned a great deal from him concerning finance and aviation.;)

Goomer:
"an entity that is prone to the loss of basic funtionality of thought process resulting in momentary lapses of awareness."
 
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bartmc said:
Doncha think that paying off a $2.00 balance on a closed credit card probably shouldn't push the needle at all?

Like I said, I don't care, but the whole thing is silly.
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I dunno. It's hard to craft a one-size-fits-all algorithm for anything. IQ tests, SAT tests...none of them are perfect. It's why any decent lender is going to use a credit score as only a part of the approval decision.

I don't know what your credit situation is, but one thing that's important to lenders is how many credit lines you have open and how long you've had them. You closed a long-running credit account, so the value of "cumulative months of active revolving credit lines in good standing" may have suddenly changed to a much smaller number. Is that worth a 2% change in total possible FICO score? I dunno, maybe. Doesn't necessarily seem automatically "silly" to me.
 
We use our Discovery card as much as we can per month. We in 15 years never have paid interest as we pay it off every month. When we added on and remodeled our house we maxed the card out 3 times in a month. When all was said and done we took a flight to Hawaii, jumped on a cruise ship for 10 days, flew home with under $200 out of pocket. The only time we paid interest on a card was when I bought my dad a new lawn mower on my Sears card and forgot to pay it. They called me 3 times a day until our payment was received. The Discover card is what works best for us, the usual bill is around 8K per month and the cash back varies on what was bought. Sears gives us a discount when using their card in store that works out better the the other cards.
 
Geico266 said:
Capital One Visa Quick Silver. 1.5% cash back, no annual fees. What's in your wallet? :D


I make $125 a month. :yes:
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I use the Southwest Visa card, run all my personal and business expenses through there, I haven't paid cash for a Southwest Airlines ticket for myself or family in more than 10 years, and we fly a lot. I always pay the balance in full each month, no interest charges.
 
Jim_R said:
The banking industry is what it is...you can read stories about it in the Bible. There's nothing that's happened in the last 8 years that's really any different than what's gone on before. If it's true that you have "no need or desire to engage in business with them", then you shouldn't care what your FICA score is.

I've had my no-fee primary card for 25 years. If they add a fee, I'll close it and get a different one.

Life's too short to get emotional about that sorta stuff.
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Yep, and mankind has suffered for it since money was invented, it should have never been allowed to be its own commodity"
 
A few years back, right before I sold my businesses and moved up to being just one of the 99% someone challenged me about my credit score. I had not a clue what it might be. So on a lark I took one of those free credit reports
When the result came, I blinked a couple of times and asked if that was good. "Not really" was the reply.
So, I'm sitting there analyzing why I'm a deadbeat and I decide to call the president of the bank where I have my business checking accounts.
Hey Jack, I just got xxx as a credit score. Why?
He laughed and said, well you are a tight wad and you refuse to be in debt, you drive a ten year old car, you don't live at the country club estates and you don't go on cruises. You pay your credit cards off in full every month and they don't make a damned penny off you. They notice things like that. They want some poor bugger who is keeping up on his payments but is so far in the hole that they will never stop making 18% interest off him for the rest of his life. That is what makes for a good credit score.
Oh. uuuh OK. Thanks.
Want to borrow some money? I can help your credit score. A couple hundred grand will jump that score right up there. (wicked laugh)
Uuuh no thanks Jack. Once a deadbeat always a deadbeat, I guess.
 
paflyer said:
No, you just have to pay back what you borrow. You don't have to carry balances on credit cards and you can pay off a car loan the month after you buy it.

It is dumb and it is a racket, but not having a good to great credit rating in these times is necessary, unless you plan on being off the grid forever.
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Years ago, I was dinged for paying off my 48month loan in 20 months. They said they wanted to see at least 24mknths. They would not approve the extra money I wanted to buy more car.
 
Actually on May 11, 2014 the credit bureaus changed their scoring algorithm.


It's clear to me that they just shifted who they wished to give credit to a different demographic.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Years ago, I was dinged for paying off my 48month loan in 20 months. They said they wanted to see at least 24mknths. They would not approve the extra money I wanted to buy more car.
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How do you know the reason? It's not like you can call TRW and get someone to explain it to you.
 
Sleepingsquirrel said:
My Uncle was a wealthy man , had accounts in many local banks. One bank plugged him into their new algorithm and decided he was too old for his line of credit. He simply walked in and closed his account. ( this was after discussing his history and profitibility with the new goomers) Needless to say they noticed when he finally withdrew his support from their bank. Wanted to wine and dine him back, but he could see the future with a mindless entity was pointless.
I learned a great deal from him concerning finance and aviation.;)

Goomer:
"an entity that is prone to the loss of basic funtionality of thought process resulting in momentary lapses of awareness."
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It's good to have "F U" money.
 
paflyer said:
How do you know the reason? It's not like you can call TRW and get someone to explain it to you.
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That was the credit union's explanation as to why they would not approve an additional $4,000.
 
FICO misses the most important factor in loaning money, available liquid and non-liquid assets.

Never seen a bank or credit union that wouldn't lend if the checking and savings accounts were full of money, no matter the FICO score. ;)
 
Jaybird180 said:
That was the credit union's explanation as to why they would not approve an additional $4,000.
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Well then that was the CU's loan criteria (length of payment history), not necessarily your credit score.
 
denverpilot said:
FICO misses the most important factor in loaning money, available liquid and non-liquid assets.

Never seen a bank or credit union that wouldn't lend if the checking and savings accounts were full of money, no matter the FICO score. ;)
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I'm very happy to know that the credit agencies don't know what my assets are.
 
denverpilot said:
FICO misses the most important factor in loaning money, available liquid and non-liquid assets.

Never seen a bank or credit union that wouldn't lend if the checking and savings accounts were full of money, no matter the FICO score. ;)
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I have, mine. Had $90k in the bank, wanted to borrow another $30k to buy a $120k condo at the bottom of the market. I had no score, Wells Fargo would not lend the money.
 
Borrowing money is really no different from renting any other commodity or item.

You get to use something that belongs to someone else for a certain time, and pay a fee to do so.

What's the problem?
 
paflyer said:
I'm very happy to know that the credit agencies don't know what my assets are.
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Good point. Although it's probably not hard to figure it out. Most larger hard assets are easily figured out by public records, but it costs them money to get it.
 
Henning said:
I have, mine. Had $90k in the bank, wanted to borrow another $30k to buy a $120k condo at the bottom of the market. I had no score, Wells Fargo would not lend the money.
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Dumb on their part. I can't stand WF anyway. Good investment, they're masters at nickel and diming customers to death.
 
Henning said:
I have, mine. Had $90k in the bank, wanted to borrow another $30k to buy a $120k condo at the bottom of the market. I had no score, Wells Fargo would not lend the money.
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They were going to sell it to Uncle Sam and have underwriting rules they have to follow. It's the government...
 
The idea that you must have a credit card to get stellar credit is bull****!

The idea that canceling a card can't affect your credit is bull****!

Just saying
 
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