My Experian FICO score went up 5 points today. I was quite surprised since nothing good has been happening with my profile.
I scoured the EX report and the only thing I can find is that one of my inquiries is dated 2/6/23. So if that became unscorable today, 2/6/24, my scorable EX inquiries dropped from 7 to 6.
Not sure what conclusions to draw, but thought I'd pass along the data.
Update 2/7/24. Although by my count, the number of scorable inquiries dropped from 7 to 6, experian.com is saying on its user interface, under "what's changed", that the number of recent inquiries dropped from 6 to 5. So I guess the next bin tops out at 5 not 6:
"On your previous report you had 6 recent inquiries—now you have 5, probably because an inquiry hit the 1 year mark. This means the inquiry no longer affects your FICO® Score, even though it will stay on your credit report for 2 years.
Keep in mind, we're only showing what FICO considers to be new inquiries and your credit report might show a different number. For example, FICO may group multiple inquiries for a new loan into one inquiry so you aren't penalized for shopping for a better rate."
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:Impact of an inquiry is nominally 5 points if you change bins. Your data point supports this.
My understanding of inquiry bins is: 0, 1, 2-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10+. Not sure if all the bins are correct.
Well this would certainly fit within your understanding, going from the 7-9 bin down to the 4-6 bin.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:It just seems that a total of 25 points associated with inquiries is a bit much. Perhaps you can garden for a year and monitor impact of additional inquiries falling off EX to help confirm bins 😆
I may have to garden for a year, since at present I'm not exactly a prime candidate for anything worth having.
But actually, I only need to garden for about 6 months, because in August the last of my current scorable inquiries will be dropping off.
Now, under your hypothesis, when I get down to 3 scorable, which should happen in June, I may well pick up another 5 points.
Update 2/7/24. Although by my count, the number of scorable inquiries dropped from 7 to 6, experian.com is saying on its user interface, under "what's changed", that the number of recent inquiries dropped from 6 to 5. So I guess the next bin tops out at 5 not 6:
"On your previous report you had 6 recent inquiries—now you have 5, probably because an inquiry hit the 1 year mark. This means the inquiry no longer affects your FICO® Score, even though it will stay on your credit report for 2 years.
Keep in mind, we're only showing what FICO considers to be new inquiries and your credit report might show a different number. For example, FICO may group multiple inquiries for a new loan into one inquiry so you aren't penalized for shopping for a better rate."
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.
At both of the institutions where I've worked, when a credit report is pulled nothing is sent to the credit bureau that distinguishes it as an inquiry for an app for a revolving product or an inquiry for an app for an installment product, so for at least some inquiries this wouldn't be true.
Nevermind, I get the sense of what you're saying now. None of the undistinguished inquiries I was talking about would be deduped anyway, since they don't fall into a deduped category like, e.g., inquiries specifically coded as auto.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:Ok - bin revision:
0, 1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-9 and 10+
It can be tricky knowing whether some inquiries are deduped to count as one. I am on the fence as to deduping of inquiries associated with seeking revolving credit. Possibly yes although most statements from Fico only mention deduping of installment loans. I do know revolving credit seeking inquiries are not deduped together with installment loan inquiries.
As we know, Fico 8 uses a 45 day dedupe.
There have been times when I applied for revolving credit from a credit union, but I received an alert that an installment loan inquiry had been made. Perhaps some institutions, when they make the inquiry, label it as an installment loan inquiry. And the credit bureau, not knowing what it's really for, puts it in as such.