From Experian: positive reason: The total credit extended to you across your bankcard accounts is greater than the average in your credit category negative reason: The outstanding balances on your revolving accounts are greater than the average in your credit category The negative reason I think I can understand, they must be comparing me to other people who have the same number of cards as me with similar limits. But how do they determine my credit category for the positive reason? Maybe I have more total credit than other people in my zip code, or other people with a similar mortgage balance? They certainly don't know anything about my income or net worth, so that can't be it.
Thats a very good question. I always wondered what they mean by people in your credit category. I've received the same type of comments: positive in higher credit limits that people in your credit category, but for negative higher balances than people in your credit category. Hopefully someone will be able to explain what "your credit category" means.
Well I'll take a stab at this, to simpily put this. My impression that I get is that there are two types of categories, first being the main, your score range categorized as very risky, low risk and so on if I remember it correctly. What I perceived as the second category or sub category is the type of credit line, Revolving,Installment, and Retail. As an example lets say you were in the medium risk category and you charged some large amount on your CC, we all know that inccuring any debt will lower your score, for what ever paticular reason code you had will probably change as you fall into a different category,like as I mentioned befor maybe that CC charge put you in a lower fico range thus triggering a different reason code for that paticular category (fico)range, taking in consideration the overall types of credit(categories) and credit made available to you. Hope this made sense, this is the impression I get when they refer to categories, I could be wrong about this but who the hell understands the fico system completely anyways
But wouldn't that mean that my score is based on my score? It seems like circular logic to say one of the factors affecting your score is based on your score. My Experian score is 744, which places me in the Medium-Low risk category at Experian. What's one of the reasons I'm in that category? "The total credit extended to you across your bankcard accounts is greater than the average in your credit category." According to the simulator, if I reduced my total available credit by 1/16th, my score would lower to the point that I would be in the Medium risk category. So how can the variable that places me into a certain category then be declared out of sync with that category? Am I missing something? I realize this is all fairly meaningless speculation, because the Experian score is fake, thus the reasons codes are meaningless, and the simulator is less than meaningless. I also know that they put all of this stuff out just to keep us busy and make a few bucks along the way. I'm throwing out a these questions & ideas because I'm working on a plan to skewer the credit industry in a public way, hopefully in a manner that we will all find both humorous and satsifying.
