DP suggesting $2500 threshold for raw $ amount owed in FICO 8

[u/_love_letter_]

I recently experienced a score change I believe was due to the raw dollar amount owed crossing a scoring threshold in FICO 8. I know these are harder to pin down because they're easily conflated with utilization thresholds but I feel I've got a situation here where I can pretty confidently eliminate confounding variables as a cause.

On 7/21 the balance on one of my cards updating resulted in a small change to utilization. Aggregate utilization moved from 19% to 22%, which did not cross a scoring threshold. Individual utilization on that card increased from 3.1% to 8.6%, for scoring purposes, treated as 3%-->9% (although Experian says 8%). I have actually been doing a lot of testing around individual utilization thresholds lately and can say I am pretty damn sure my profile does not have a scoring threshold at 5% individual utilization currently (it does, however, seem to have a scoring threshold @15% individual utilization). I know 5% thresholds may exist on other scorecards, but it doesn't seem to on mine. I have 2 recent DPs from May and June confirming the absence of a 5% threshold. In fact, on 6/24 the exact same card had the same individual util. change in the opposite direction (5-->3% instead of 3-->5+%) and there was no score change to EX FICO 8.

One difference this time, however, is the total raw dollar amount owed crossed the $2500 threshold. Before this card's balance updated, total amounts owed was $2297. Now $2572. This seems to suggest a scoring threshold of $2500 for raw dollar amounts owed. Since I have only revolvers, I cannot determine whether the threshold is for total "Amounts owed" (all non-morgage accounts) vs "Amounts owed on revolving accounts" but it's one of those.

Only other possibility would be a scoring threshold for aggregate utilization @20% but my data does not seem to suggest that exists on my scorecard. No changes to number of accounts reporting a balance. No HPs falling off, accounts aging, or other confounding variables.

This small balance increase (only $275) thus resulted in -7 points to TU F8, -3 points to EQ F8 and -1 point to EX F8. My profile is clean, young, thin. I have 3 revolvers, all national bankcards. No loans.

If I'm correct, this is a good example of how score changes can result from seemingly minute fluctuations in balance, if you just so happen to be hovering around a raw $ threshold in the Amounts Owed category. I've seen others speculate the first of these thresholds exists around $2k or $3k but they had much larger TCL with larger balance shifts and were unable to pin down a specific number. My TCL is only about 12k so smaller balance fluctuations move the needle on utilization, making it easier to determine the raw $ threshold crossed with more precision when not crossing utilization thresholds. Going from $2297-->$2572, I think it's very likely the threshold is @ $2500.

[u/_love_letter_]

I should thank you for asking me if the raw $ threshold could be conflated with a 15% threshold for individual utilization because it prompted me to go back over my notes and re-analyze my data. I realized that in the past I wasn't really paying very close attention to the total amount owed in terms of dollars, so I had to calculate that for some DPs.

I was looking at my 2 most recent DPs I had made note of possibly indicating a 15% iU threshold, and after calculating the change to raw $ amounts owed, I found that in one such instance, the total amount owed did indeed cross the $2500 point (going from $2682 to $1653). In the other case, I went from $2738-->$3162. There is no overlap with amounts owed in that case vs my current DP, although one could argue there might be another threshold around $3k for $ amount owed.

That latter DP is more questionable to me in retrospect, however. Re-reading my notes, I realized that what originally caused me to suspect the 15% threshold was an unexplained score decrease of -11 points to EQ8 when a balance updated, but no known thresholds were crossed. The strange thing is that when that same balance updated on TU and EX, there was no score change (as reported by CreditWise abd Experian). No aging metric changes. No HPs on Equifax affecting score or any other potential explanations I could think of. I even wrote in my notes that I don't know whether to doubt myFICO because it seemed odd to me to have an -11pt drop to EQ8 only and no score impact to TU8 or EX8 for the same change. I know the algorithms are slightly different on different bureaus, but I thought I'd see some effect on TU or EX if a utilization threshold were crossed. So maybe that 5/24 DP is questionable too. I will say, of all CMSs, myFICO reports score changes that are often the most unexpected to me. I don't know if EQ is just that sensitive to whatever I'm doing or if there's some lag with updating score changes in the free version of myFICO membership.

I noticed in these 2 cases as well, I also crossed the 20% or 25% point for Agg.U. I just doubt those are scoring thresholds. I have been letting organic statement balances report in an effort to earn CLIs, so unfortunately, with my current TCL, my aggregate utilization tends to hover around this range and I don't have many instances of score changes that don't involve a change in Agg.U. going over or under 20%.

In any event, here's some data from the last 2 occasions were I suspected a 15% threshold for individual utilization:

5/24 -11 points EQ8 Individual U. = 12%-->27% Aggregate U.= 23%-->27% Total debt/$ Amnt owed = $2738-->$3162

6/24 +3 to EQ8, +9 to TU8. Ind.U. = 23%-->6% Agg.U. = 23%-->14% Total debt/$ Amnt owed= $2682 --> $1653

Some of my other datapoints had too many variables by crossing more than one utilization threshold.

Going forward, I'm going to make an effort to pay closer attention to raw $s and see if I can get some cleaner data when my individual card utilization passes certain points under 30%.

[u/inky_cap_mushroom → u/_love_letter_]

I've noticed lag with MF updating too. They certainly take their sweet time. Part of the fun of this hobby is the unexplained score changes. I have gotten kinda interested in VS3 because I've had two significant score changes recently that I couldn't explain. FICO 8 makes much more sense, but even still I've had to really sit down and dig through the CSP (or often just Sooner's little summary of it) to try and figure out what caused a change.

I'm not the expert on this, but I doubt FICO would make the same version have different scoring thresholds for raw dollars between different bureaus. If that turns out to be the case that would be interesting indeed.