dweick said:chuzzlewit said:Most of what's posted here is heresay at best. FICO's algorithms are proprietary and closely guarded. They don't want the truth to be known to eliminate the exact type of manipulation that people who keep asking these same questions over and over want to do.

I don't consider it "manipulation" to attempt to adjust your behavior to improve your FICO score any more than I consider it manipulation to educate yourself on how to present yourself during a job interview or on a date.

The FICO folks even give out tips on how to improve your score.

You can call it "moneypulation", if you like. It's a game you are playing, and the rules are only implicit, not explicitly stated, and you have to make guesses. Trial and error...

Despite of its name, I am not so sure if FICO is so "Fair" . I mean, it only shows the likelihood of delinquency or BK or whatever, according to a mathematical model, it's not a 100% certainty. Quantitative analysis is not able to do that. It is therefore a sociological stencil (how do you think about the average Joe?) you are trying to conform with, if you want. It's OK up to a point, but it definitely doesn't take into account other, difficult to enter into equation, personal characteristics, like motivation, ability to learn, or unforeseen events.

Someone said to me , that combining credit limits usually help the chances from other banks to increase their credit limit until matching with the highest limit , afraid of losing business.

You all made me curious so I went and just ran my credit report w/fico. I have 40+ accounts (about 10 satisfied and closed) listed on my credit report and my fico is 805. I think maybe it has more to do with how you treat the credit than how many open/close you have?