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That chat with a loan officer at my local credit union made me rethink credit scoring algorithms

I was in line at Detroit Metro Credit Union last Tuesday and the loan officer told me their system flagged my application because I closed a 10-year-old card last month. She said the algorithm can't tell between responsible consolidation and someone running from debt, so it just drops your score. Made me wonder how many people get denied for stuff that actually looks fine to a human. Anyone else run into a situation where an algorithm clearly missed the bigger picture?
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3 Comments
xena_bailey18
My friend Sara closed her oldest card to switch to a no-fee bank and her score dropped 40 points, even though she had zero debt. The loan officer she talked to literally said "this is why I hate our scoring system.
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wendy820
wendy8202d agoMost Upvoted
Oh man, I gotta respectfully disagree here lol. That card was her oldest account and closing it wiped out years of credit history, so of course the algorithm punished her for it. She could've just asked for a product change to a no-fee card instead of closing it outright and keeping that history alive.
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aaron740
aaron7402d ago
Yep Wendy, @wendy820 is right that closing old accounts can hurt, but sometimes a card has an annual fee you just don't want to pay.
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