On the cusp of some FICO changes...

[shipo]

As many of you know, I had my Chapter 13 discharged in March of 2020 and after a few stupid moves immediately following the discharge, I have been successfully rebuilding and improving my FICO credit scores, errr, that is until about a month ago, sort of. Between June of 2020 and November 2021 my FICO 8/9 scores rose from a low of 603/630 to a reasonably respectable 688/741; things were looking pretty good. Then my wife and I found out we needed to vacate our apartment in less than six weeks, and among other things, I needed to buy a new washer and dryer for the new townhome we rented; the timing couldn't have been worse. Why? In my small credit card portfolio of only three cards, the best one for the purchase from a cash rewards and extended warranty perspective was also solidly between my "due date" and my "statement date"; the sale I found only lasted one more day which in turn meant either taking advantage of the rewards but having a balance about $2,500 reported from the card to the credit bureaus, or using a different card. I chose to take the hit, and "hit" I took; my FICO 8/9 scores took a whack of -9 and -22 points respectively. Yeesh!

Given the old adage, "FICO giveth, FICO taketh away, and FICO giveth back", the odds are pretty good next week when my new numbers are reported, I'll be at least back where I was in mid-November. The better news happens in the next month or so; my Chapter 13 should fall off my credit reports in January, so depending upon whether I get rebucketed on a different score card or not, I could see scores in the high 700s or even low 800s.

Stay tuned for the mini-reveal next week and the grand-reveal next month.

[justbroke]

Hang in there. I'm awaiting the big reveal. I'm at 715/705 (FICO 8/FICO 9). The funny thing is that my middle F8 score went down 11 points yesterday and back to 715 today.

I imagine a new advertisement from FICO...

There is no rhyme, there is no reason. There's only FICO, for this season!

I think that I'll be 720+/720+ after the 18th when the final two removed AU accounts no longer report as open! I'm relatively sure that I'll be over 740 early next year. I'm on a mission to 800, but my accounts need to age!

(Remember, I was re-bucketed and my scores didn't improve nearly as much as I hope. I now see the error of my ways. The (high utilization) AU accounts combined with several new accounts didn't help. My reports are clean, it's just these AUs are killing me softly.)

[shipo]

Mini-Reveal, Part 1; as I alluded to above, my Experian FICO 8 has been the lowest of my credit scores, by far, regardless of which score type (FICO 28 and the three Vantage 3.0 scores); then today it all of the sudden popped up by well over 100 points!

Upon further analysis, I was expecting my EX 8 score to rebound this week to the mid to high 680 range, which would reflect the payment I sent CapOne for my new washer and dryer, dropping my reported balance from about $2,500 to zero; what I didn't expect is for my Chapter 13 to fall off my Experian report a month early. Long story short, for a day or two, my EX 8 FICO score is my highest current score sitting at a nice healthy 817!

Over the next couple of days the rest of my Experian scores as well as all of my Equifax and TransUnion scores should report (I'm assuming with my Chapter 13 still reporting); should be interesting.

[justbroke]

It's a wild ride, for sure. I wrote in another thread about when the bankruptcy (Chapter 13) falls off. You can get TransUnion to drop it 6-months in advance by simply disputing it as old. Don't say anything to Equifax. Experian always drops it the month before it is due to fall off.

For those that don't know, these are known as early exclusions.

I'm trying to get to AZEO with the last 2 or 3 of my AU accounts coming off shortly (awaiting reporting). Score jumped 15 points to 730... but 2 of them are still reporting. I also got an 11 point drop, then a 13 point increase which I can't fully explain. An annual fee reported for a VISA card, and for some reason my PayPal reported $6.99 out of the blue for no reason but at least it reports as a credit card (not a store card).

What I learned while my score has been bouncing all over the planet... do not let any store cards report a single dollar! I had one -- my Amazon Store Card -- report $16 and my score went down 11 points. (It then went up by 13 for some other reason.) I refuse to have any store card report any longer and will be shutting those down after I determine any fallout from closing too many.

I'm thinking January 20-31 (2022) I should be touching the sky (800) or broke that ceiling.

(And I accidentally let my AMEX charge card report a $4,100+ balance.)

[shipo]

A couple of comments:

• I have been fighting the urge to try for an EX and TU early exclusion for months now; given I'm not planning on applying for any new credit for at least a year, I certainly don't need higher scores, but they're good to see none-the-less.
• Regarding AZEO (All cards reporting a Zero balance Except One); for me, on my current dirty score card, whether I was AZEO, or AZE2, it made no difference to my scores. That said, I went "All Zero" a few months ago and took a pretty healthy whack, something like 20 points if I remember correctly. I imagine if timing had aligned where all three of my cards had reported a small balance, my scores would have taken a significant drop as well.
• Next month when my Chapter 13 drops off of EQ and TU (assuming they don't follow EX's lead and fall off this month), my score card will most likely change; my understanding is once on a "Clean Score Card", AZEO is the absolute rule. I am of course one of those folks who needs to find out for himself, so I will probably play with my balances for a while to see what impact they have on my scores.

[justbroke]

shipo we appreciate you being the guinea pig!

[justbroke]

This is going to be a roller coaster ride. My TU just went up 14 points just now. I think one of the AU accounts fell off, and I just need the other 2 to go away, and then to get to AZEO.

[shipo]

The final numbers are in for December; as I speculated above, my EQ and TU numbers recovered from the washer/dryer purchase to at least where they were in October; most are up a few points, the highest bump being an 11 point rise in my EQ "Bank-8" score which rose from 715 to 726.

My EX scores are a different matter entirely; given the drop of my Chapter 13 from my Experian file, the average bump was a whopping 122 points with my EX "Auto-9" being 852! Assuming EQ and TU follow suit next month when they are scheduled to drop my bankruptcy, it looks like the odds are pretty good all 28 of my FICO scores will be well in excess of 800.

Does the above sound too good to be true? It does to me; I'm wondering when the next shoe will drop and I'll get moved to a different score card and see my scores drop into the mid to high 700s; still good enough for my purposes.

Long story short, finishing a Chapter 13 and judiciously rebuilding one's credit can pay HUGE dividends.

[justbroke]

My TU went up +15 today. I'm enjoying the ride, for now. I think my student loans are not going to let me get past 800, so it may be a ceiling for me.

[Zombie13]

AZEO, AZE2, TU, EX... EQ... ugh please... no more acronyms LOL! Just kidding. We need an 'acromania' kinda thing...time for a drink hah! Beinz holidays and all

[shipo]

A quick acronym check (just in case):

• EQ = Equifax
• EX = Experian
• TU = TransUnion
• AZ = All Zero
• AZEO = All Zero Except One
• AZE2 = All Zero Except Two
• AZET = All Zero Except Two (or Three)

Happy Holidays everyone!

[Zombie13]

Ah ok. I didn't make the association; thank you for the acronym list!

[shipo]

Ah ok. I didn't make the association; thank you for the acronym list!

I'm wondering if maybe a more detailed "Sticky" might be in order for such things as AZEO where the general wisdom teaches something along the lines of:

"Keep all of your revolving credit lines (i.e. Credit Cards) reporting a zero balance for any given month EXCEPT ONE (which should report a small balance of say, less than $100). As the theory goes, this will give you the maximum FICO bonus points."

[Zombie13]

That sounds like a good idea - as you mention, a short description, explanation, and example of the acronym. I was wondering, 'why is this important, why is doing this important?'

[shipo]

Well, another mini-reveal; all three of my FICO-8 scores have been updated, however, I'll still need to wait three more weeks before the rest of my FICO scores reflect the drop of the Chapter 13.

Long story short, I'm now showing the following:

• 835 - Equifax
• 817 - Experian
• 815 - TransUnion