[balderdash]

The ridiculous thing is that the FICO score is so focused on commercial profitability rather than risk. You get lower score if you as a consumer optimise your cost of credit, price shopping/taking advantage of new rates/offers… it’s really a credit and likely profitability score

[Workaccount2]

I have an 800 score while always being tight with my wallet.

The most valuable thing to lenders is someone who can 100% be counted on to always pay, even if things outside their control turn against them. People chronically fail to understand this, and end up putting themselves in financially precarious situations i.e. paycheck-to-paycheck living.

[balderdash]

Yes, but credit scores penalise people for many actions that have more to do with being perceived to bad customers than bad credit risks.payment history is only 35% of your score and and if you add it credit utilization, your only talking about ~2/3s of the score…

You can’t get a perfect score if you change credit cards on a regular basis or cancel a zero balance card, people have worse credit because they paid off their student loans years ago or bought an older/cheaper car with cash as opposed financing one (less credit “diversity”) all of these things penalize people who have always paid their bills

[Workaccount2]

I have an 800 score and never had student loans, a mortgage, or a car loan. Just credit cards. Whatever app always tells me my diversity is low, but I still have perfect credit.

This is entirely from just 3 credit cards over 10 years, but I'm pretty sure I was at 800 by year 3 or 4.

People so chronically over-extend their finances that looking around, they have no idea they are over extended. It's like overweight people looking around and thinking their weight is normal and their diet is good.

[Dalewyn]

A closed line of credit (eg: closed credit card, paid off loan) will fall off your credit report after about 7 years, lowering your score.

Having many inquiries from asking for new credit cards frequently implies you're trying to take on a lot of debt, which is a higher risk factor and thus lowers your score.

Buying with cash means you didn't take on debt, so that obviously doesn't factor into your credit score.

Parent is right, people (such as yourself) chronically don't understand how finances work.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I do not have an 800 score despite never missing a payment on any account. I don’t know why my score is lower (they don’t tell you!) but my general understanding is that the original commenter is right and my score would be higher if I had more credit products.

[balderdash]

Yeah payment history is only 35% of your score, amount of debt is 30% of your score (stupidly they want that to be below 7% of available (revolving credit) - meaning they penalise if you spend $1k/month on a credit card (and pay it off each month) and your limit is $10k, where as if your limit was ~$16k they look upon it favourably), length of history 15% (changing loan providers or credit cards hurts you here - despite flawless payment history), credit mix 10% (so if you just have credit cards this hurts you)

[nullc]

meh, that's not true. it's easy to have a top score while never paying lenders a dollar in profit. You just have to follow instructions online to juice your accounts by opening the right kinds and using them the right ways (e.g. keeping your usage below a threshold percentage of your limits).

The credit score is essentially price discrimination predicated on customers not being able to find and follow instructions. It also happens to give poor scores to people who are credit risks, but the difference between a meh score and a high one is mostly your ability to munchkin a bit.

[Edit: just checked, mine is 808.]