Understanding FICO score
 

Discover Card shows my FICO score as 844, with the following warnings:

Your FICO® Credit Score is affected by the Key Factor(s) below:

1. TOO MANY ACCOUNTS WITH BALANCES:
Too many accounts with balances suggest greater risk to lenders. For credit cards you pay off every month, your credit report may still show balances, since it generally shows the total amount on your last statement.

2. TOO MANY CONSUMER FINANCE COMPANY ACCOUNTS:
A consumer finance company loan on your report indicates you're a higher risk to lenders.

About those items:

1) Out of eight credit cards, two show a balance. It's paid in full within a couple of days of the statement, but of course, month to month those two cards (MC and AXP, in case it matters) do show a balance. In all cases, each card has about 5%-8% of usage on the average.

2) Besides the credit cards I mentioned above, there are a few mortgages, all of them with zero balance/paid off except for the current one, and one current car lease being reported.

So, I guess two cards out of eight is "too many with a balance", and one car lease is "too many consumer finance companies"?

Anyway, just curious, 844 is pretty darn good, so I'm not complaining.

I don't think those two things are specific to you as I think that is just a generic message they tell everyone informing them of what affects their credit score.

*edit* nevermind apparently I'm blind.

It is machine generated, but specific to the credit file. 850 is the maximum FICO score. As the score approaches the maximum the imperfections are slight, and the wording of the explanations becomes less appropriate, but it may still be true that if fliesdelta were to pay off the car the score would increase. There would be no practical benefit to doing this, but bear in mind that there are several variants of the FICO formula, and the auto loan might be seen as a negative in one context and positive in another.

FICO scores predictive, not prescriptive. Fair Issac isn't telling you how you should manage credit. They are telling lenders that people who resemble fliesdelta are statistically a low risk. No borrower is zero risk.

Got it, I didn't realize that my messages had changed, my mistake.

This is a case of FICO "finding something to whine about".
Even if you would have a perfect 850, I bet you still receive "negative reply" from FICO.

how do folks get scores that high in the first place? not that it matters practically speaking, I'm just curious -- that might be one of the highest scores I've ever seen, if it is indeed a real FICO, using the latest algorithm/formula/version.

am I correct in assuming I wont crack 800 if I've never had a mortgage or a car note? just CCs alone, no matter how aged they get wont get me above 800 etc?

The closest I've gotten was 787 with only credit cards and no mortage or loans. That was according to free discover FICO score.

The machine always picks two things you could improve on. But it doesn't show how much you could improve, and it doesn't change the wording to match your situation.

It could be that it found only two ways you could increase your score, by 1 point each, and those are the two it listed. It always wants to list at least two, so if it can only find two that might increase your score by only 1 point each, it'll list those!

But do you mourn having a score of 844 instead of 845 or 846??? :D If not, don't worry about it.

This is a score provided for free by a bank. All of those free-through-the-bank scores are bureau-generated scores. The TU-generated scores (which Barclays uses) show bigger scores for me consistently than the EQ or EX (I forget which) scores that US Bank shows, month after month after month. (Ie, both go up together, both go down together, but both stay diverged.)

There's an existing thread that discusses these free FICO scores from banks and differences between them:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credi...it-scores.html

Discover Card says it's FICO, I don't know how "true" it is, but whatever.

On my file I have zero derogs, zero public records, two hard pulls (one from March '14, one from May '13), eight credit card opens (all but two with zero balance), several closed, the current car lease, a couple of car loans that were paid off a few years ago, some mortgages going back 20 years and only one open right now. The oldest credit card is Amex, open in 1986, the newest is a Visa opened in 2005.

The March '14 HP was from Amex when I opened the Ameriprise Plat (it got back dated to 1986), the May '13 was when I opened a business Amex through my employer (did not get backdated, but it doesn't show up on my file).

I don't think a few points up or down will make a difference, so I really don't care. I was just curious, that's all.

I believe as others have pointed out that the system looks to point at least 2 things to provide constructive feedback on and since you have as close to a perfect FICO score I have ever heard of it is truly nit-picking.

I noticed that my score dropped when I paid off my mortgage years ago and dropped again when the loan I co-signed for my son's car was paid off, leaving nothing but CC lines of credit - always paid in full each month. This seems counter-intuitive to me but has not negatively impacting my hobby of getting new CC's as I have yet to be turned down for a new app.

nice, thanks for detailing that out. my history is only a few yrs old at this point, the highest I've gotten my TU FiCO is around 765, and have gotten all the CCs my heart desires thus far.

lets see in 20-30 yrs time, once I get mortgages and car loans etc to see if I cant get my score on your level :D

Barclays TU fico has gotten around 810-820 for my wife, she has no car loans or mortgages on her file since she had a bankruptcy 11 years ago so I left her off all the apps while it was still on there.
To have a super high FICO, have no negatives, a 10+ year oldest account and a very high average age of accounts, available balance, and very low utilization with no inquiries showing. The best thing you can do for yourself to get a high FICO is go back in time and make yourself apply for an Amex card when you are 18, then make sure a majority of your cards are always Amex cards because american express backdates them all to the first one :)

For an 810, I bumped off all the inquiries but had a whole bunch of new accounts, probably 30+ revolving accounts showing counting authorized user accounts, and no way the average age is more than 3 or 4 years considering all the churning and applications.

yeah wish I could go back to my 18th bday and open an AMEX... or even have opened an AMEX as my first card ever... oh well, now that I'm on the gravy train, upwards & onwards regardless.