[FireBeyond]

Right. There is certainly a component of risk in the models but there’s also “how valuable a credit consumer are you”.

Which is why things like closing accounts or paying loans early actually hurt your score. CRAs and their advocates say “we lost a datapoint so our uncertainty increases”, acting as if that historical data has no value.

When I was applying for a mortgage and my credit was as “clean” as it has been (balances, accounts, etc.) Verizon filed a collection over what was a fraudulent account. Score dropped 140 points. In the course of three business days that collection was deleted, and my score went back up… 50 points.

Multiple factors, I know, but that also makes me think that even some of those deleted trade lines and delinquencies and others are still floating around and factoring in.