Credit hit for closing recently opened Card??

Show me where Fair Isaac says "do> System identification (the correct term to use in place of

In that case, I'm ESPECIALLY puzzled that you're not more supsect of the conventional wisdom surrounding the FICO score. How can you hear a statement like "doing X will raise/lower your credit score" and not cringe? We're talking about (I believe) highly dynamic function. Do you really think it's even possible to isolate a single variable and say that the function varies monotonically with it? Forget about how MUCH the function varies with a given variable, I'm not even convinced the sign is constant.

For the discussion at hand, the purpose of the system is irrelevent. The purpose of the APPROXIMATION (i.e. conventional wisdom) is to help people raise their credit score. If you did system identification, I'm sure you know George Box's famous quote, "All models are false but some models are useful." The approximations are probably locally accurate (there's Taylor's theorem at work again). They might even be locally useful. I'm simply not convinced the approximations are good enough to be globally accepted as accurate, even just to point of the the sign being correct.

Just to make a concrete case, consider the function:

f(x, y) = x - 2xy + y

If you only sample the function in the set 0 < x < .5, no matter how many samples you take, you'll conclude that f increases with y. That's locally true and perhaps even useful. But if you try and generalize your result to, say, .5 < x < 1, you'll be extremely disappointed. This is a simple function of 2 variables. The FICO function has dozens (hundreds?) of variables and is (probably) far more complicated. Take the approximations on faith if you like. I'll wait for a more rigorous treatment of the problem. And I won't hold my breath.

--Bill

There are multiple factors at play in closing a card. You are closing a tradeline, but it will still be on your report for 7 years. The shrinkage of your total available credit and assuming the card was at a zero balance and there are other cards that are reporting a balance (Most cards report the balance on statement closing date, so very few paid in full report as zero) the growth of overall utlisation across all lines.

joetaxpayer wrote on [Tue, 4 Dec 2007 11:25:03 -0600]:

Assuming she got the card under her own name, your score isn't affacted at all. If she is signing you up for the account as well, the question is why?

There is no "our FICO". There's one for you and one for her. Only joint accounts and Authorised User (for now) accounts will count for both of you. Which is why it's a good idea for a husband and a wife to have seperate credit cards to maintain a good credit profile for each.

Apply for the right one then once you get it merge the two together into the right one.

You will take a few po> Hello,

"Bill Woessner" wrote

IMO, you are confusing the uncertainty surrounding inputs to the FICO algorithm with alleged irregularities in output. Until this point is cleared up, your question above appears to me to be loaded. You have to remember that someone somewhere says, "Oh, closing a line of credit with Lender X is weighted abcyada, because of yada. Closing a line with Lender Y is weighted defyada, because of yada." One cannot say with precision what will happen to Jane Doe when she closes a line of credit with Lender Z. Maybe you want to hear people rephrase the advice above to "doing x will tend to raise/lower.... " If so, many sites do have qualifications like this, and your objection seems to me to be more along the lines of "the writing is poor."

But you so far dismiss giving advice even about trends. You cringe even when a person is advised to pay off all balances to improve his/her credit score. I'd say you're in a tiny minority who mistrust what FICO scores are said to be.

Which problem? I cannot tell at this point.

I think we're just going to disagree and so continue to test the poorly paid moderators. I am sure enough people with reputable sources will continue to post to threads like this. Your voice is heard. So are theirs.

Among other things, I think he is saying that, even freezing all variables but one, a person cannot know the effects, even in general so as to be at least a little useful, of changing that one variable.

Seriously, I wonder whether the bigger lesson here is that the two of you discuss your finances in detail and work together to stay financially comfortable. :-)

No, I'm not. I don't know how I can be any more explicit so I'm going to stop trying. I had hoped that my simple example would drive the point home, but I guess not. As you say, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Again, no I'm not. A trend is a trend and it cannot be denied. However, is a given trend globally applicable to EVERYONE in EVERY PART of the parameter space? Without explicit knowledge of the FICO function, that's a very difficult question to answer. Those are the sorts of issues I'm raising. The conventional wisdom is based on experimental evidence, NOT on explicit knowledge of the FICO function.

Approximating the FICO function, specifically how well the conventional wisdom surrounding the FICO score approximates the FICO function.. That has been my topic all along. I've been very explicit about it so I don't know how you've lost sight of that.

--Bill

You can pay your bills on time and still not have a FICO score of

700. If you will check the way that FICO scores are tallied, you will find that a large part is based on debt to credit limit ratio, amount of credit applied for, types of credit used, etc. Therefore, if you have 5 cards and all 5 are near the credit limit, and you have just so happened to shop around for cards with lower interest rates, your score is going to be less than 700. It's a catch 22!