I gained 9 points on TU8 this week, but the only changes on my report were the following:
- Balance on one of my three open loans fell by $288
- Two old, closed loans dropped off
I'll go into more detail to support this theory, but I think the cause of the point gain was that Util on one of my loans -- but not my highest -- fell below 80%. I don't think it is conventional wisdom that individual loan Util other than the highest one matters for scoring. But I don't see a better explanation here.
For context, this is a pretty clean DP. I did my monthly 3B pull on 2/1. My TU8 that day was 825. According to an alert I got on 2/3, my score went up to 834 on 2/2. I also got two alerts from MF that day about total loan balance declining and some accounts being removed, but we all know that not every change produces an alert, so I didn't assume those were the only changes. I pulled a TU report from ACR on 2/4. It confirmed that nothing else had changed.
Here's the before->after of various things related to loan balances and utilization:
Total Balance on Loans: $115,985->$115,697
Aggregate Loan Utilization: 85.4%->85.2%
Balance of the loan that changed: $8,349->$8,061
Utilization on the loan that changed: 81%->78%
Utilization on other loan (larger): 91% (no change)
Utilization on other loan (smaller): 47% (no change)
The only thing there that looks plausibly thresholdy to me is Util on the loan that changed. I guess there could be a Total Balance on Loans threshold ($ not %) that's a non-round number in the $115k range.
Of course, the removal of two old loans shifted my aging metrics a little. Here's the before->after on all of those that could have been affected:
AAoA: 9y4m->9y1m
AoOA: 27y5m (no change)
AAoIA: 10y4m->10y1m
AoOIA: 16y7m (no change)
There's nothing there that could cause any score gain, let alone 9 points.
Now let's turn to reason statements.
First: Loan balances->New account
Second: New account->Loan balances
Third: Seeking credit (no change)
Fourth: Short revolving history (no change)
I didn't have any new accounts show up, so this is just a case of
Loan balances diminishing in importance and dropping from first position to second.
There is one other explanation I'm considering. My youngest account (a card) reached 3 months of age on 2/1. I think FICO aging calculations sometimes update a day early or a day late. So perhaps the points I saw on 2/3, which actually appeared on 2/2, were a delayed result of AoYA going from 2m to 3m. But if that was a scoring threshold, it would surely be well known. And this theory isn't supported by the change in my reason statements.
So, what do you think? Could it be that TU8 has a significant scoring threshold based on having one or two loans with Util above 80%? Do you see another explanation that I'm missing?
