yirgster

I must repectfully differ with the moderator wrt the accuracy of the simulator. In my post of Nov 12 I said: "Using the simulator, even adding 24 months of on-time payments did not change my score. Could this be correct? Or is this a simulator problem, i.e., a bug?"

The moderator's reply, below, was that this could happen if old items needed to fall off.

I couldn't believe this. And in fact it wasn't true. In January my score shot up to 732, back to 728 in Feb (one hard inquiry, what bs to lower your score for this!) and now is 744, and NOTHING has dropped off my report.

The more I think about the credit scores and how they are determined (from reading creditkarma and other sources), the more skeptical I am that they validly reflect one's credit worthiness and in fact that they can be reasonably empirically validated by the agencies. I have a highly technical background and also, having been around too many smart people, don't accept the "these have been done by very smart people." So, for example, were the derivative models that helped cause our recent economic crash. Brought to us in part by the "best and brightest" quants on wall street. As was the demise of Long Term Capital Management with 2 Nobel prize winners! Confirmed idiocy by smart people is a well-established fact of life.

I'd like to go into specific detail now about inadequacies in the scoring models as I see it (some of which have been brought up by others) but, unfortunately, it's off to work. Need to make those payments!

My credit score is 704.

My biggest problem is percent of on-time payments which is 98.35% and for which I received a grade of C. The last more than 30 days late was in April, 2009 (a complete oversight!) and the one prior in 12/2008.

Using the simulator, even adding 24 months of on-time payments did not change my score. Could this be correct? Or is this a simulator problem, i.e., a bug?

Btw, this is for a Bank of America credit card. For some reason this card has given me trouble in paying it on occasion, even though it never has much if any balance on it. (Totally my fault.)

But, to avoid costly oversights like the one in April I went to the BofA site to set up autopay. I have autopay for my other two cards. I couldn't find it, called up and then, finally, was told they didn't offer signing up for autopay on-line; that they have to send me a form that I fill out and then mail back into them!

I couldn't believe it. Of course, with autopay you lose the "opportunity" to be late. I.e., you've eliminated the opportunity to pay the bank its outrageous later fees.

Several days ago I received the autopay form. I filled it out and then searched around for the return envelop. There was none, let alone a pre-stamped one! Only a one line sentence on the 2nd page giving the address where to send it. This is why I'v gotten to despise BofA.

I would like to add a comment from my personal experience with credit scores and trying to refinance our home. I'm not saying this is true for everyone or even for most. But it's been true for us. It was also true for our original loan.

(1) In every case the loan originator has pulled the scores from all three big agencies for both my wife and I.

(2) In every case, the score used to determine what loan/interest rate we qualify for is based on the one LOWEST score of the six. There is NO averaging, etc.

(3) The lenders--at least the folks we deal with--are super rigidly strict with respect to the score needed to qualify for a specific loan. So, you can't say (we've tried): "But look at my other scores. Look how unreasonably I've been treated by this agency."

The consequence of this as I see it is: a SMALL difference in your credit score can make a HUGE difference in what mortgage you qualify for from a particular lender.

Here's a real life example: my FICO pulled directly from equifax is 679. (Equifax says this is "poor".) But a 680 is needed to qualify for mid-tier mortgage pricing for the loan amount we would need from Wells Fargo. Low tier pricing doesn't help us. We were told in no short terms that there was no possibility of making an exception. (Sure, if you're friends with the VP of mortgages I'm sure you'd get an exception made. But somehow none of our friends have made it into that august category. I better speak to them and tell 'em to get going!)

ONE point we're talking about!!! (Yeah, we're going to see what other lenders have.)

Mr/Ms CK Moderator: Thank you for your very informative (and quick!) replies!!!

They are very much appreciated!

Yet another question. Would or could removing hard inquiries that shouldn't be there help my score. One inquiry was actually made but shouldn't have been. The other I'm completely puzzled by.

Here are the circumstances for the first: we were looking to buy a house in 2008 (just before the crash, naturally) and from 03/06/2008 through 10/21/2008 the loan broker pulled credit 4 times. (I didn't realize what this would do.) However, the last time was over a month after we closed!!

So could it help--even a couple of points--to have this removed. Transunion reports 6 hard inquiries and equifax 7, the 7th one is completely unknown to me.

Second question. I have 3 credit cards. My credit card utilization is 22%. Two of the cards have a combined balance of $29,000. The other card carries a limit of $33,500 but its reported on my credit report as 0. I called up the card company, Citibank, and they said this was because a feature of the card is that it has no preset limit since I can exceed the $33,500 without being it being reported to the credit agencies. And, according to them, this is why it shows as $0 on the credit reports. But, they said, the credit agencies understand this. (I find this hard to believe.)

The service rep said if I wanted a to have a limit reported I would have to cancel this card and open a new one. But, I've had this card for 17 years and an absolutely clean history on it.

So, my questions: (1) is it true that the credit agencies "understand" a $0 limit on a revolving card?

(2) If not, what can I do about this that won't adversely affect my credit score. (The simulator said that if I opened a new card with a $5000 limit my score would drop 2 points.)

Thanks!

I have two questions. First (and less important one here). I actually ordered my credit score from Transunion. The page said I would be given a "personal score" and this score may not be the one used by lenders. This seems to be an understatement worthy of the hall of fame. It gave me a score of 843(!!) whereas my score here is 704. It ranked me in the 65th percentile, which is close to what creditkarma reports which is 63rd percentile. But, what value is this score of 843??? Is it actually used by anyone?

What's the explanation for the following: This evening (10/1 EST) I tried for the first time and it was 709. I tried again a few hours later (now 10/2 EST) and it said 704. (Can't help but think that it's because I had already accessed it. I know this isn't supposed to be affected, but ...) Anyway, I'd really appreciate an explanation. Other than get a better pair of glasses!!