Lenders can use the data from your credit report to deny you credit for any one of several reasons. If you are denied, you receive a letter identifying the credit reporting agency that provided the report, along with a risk factor reason code. Bargaineering published a list of the common risk factor codes that lenders use to deem you unworthy of credit. For all three reporting agencies, the cardinal sins are owing too much and failing to pay your bills. The list of codes, inside.

EQ stands for Equifax, TU for TransUnion, and EX for Experian.

Risk Reasons	EQ	TU	EX
Amount owed on accounts is too high	1	1	1
Level of delinquency on accounts	2	2	2
Too few bank revolving accounts	3	N/A	3
Too many bank or national revolving accounts	4	N/A	4
Too many accounts with balances	5	5	5
Too many consumer finance company accounts	6	6	6
Account payment history is too new to rate	7	7	7
Too many recent inquiries last 12 months	8	8	8
Too many accounts recently opened	9	9	9
Proportion of balances to credit limits is too high on bank revolving or other revolving accounts	10	10	10
Amount owed on revolving accounts is too high	11	11	11
Length of time revolving accounts have been established	12	12	12
Time since delinquency is too recent or unknown	13	13	13
Length of time accounts have been established	14	14	14
Lack of recent bank revolving information	15	15	15
Lack of recent revolving account information	16	16	16
No recent non-mortgage balance information	17	17	17
Number of accounts with delinquency	18	18	18
Date of last inquiry too recent	N/A	19	N/A
Too few accounts currently paid as agreed	19	27	19
Length of time since derogatory public record or collection is too short	20	20	20
Amount past due on accounts	21	21	21
Serious delinquency, derogatory public record or collection filed	22	22	22
Number of bank or national revolving accounts with balances	23	N/A	23
No recent revolving balances	24	24	24
Number of revolving accounts	26	N/A	26
Number of established accounts	28	28	28
No recent bankcard balances	N/A	29	29
Time since most recent account opening too short	30	30	30
Too few accounts with recent payment information	31	N/A	31
Lack of recent installment loan information	32	4	32
Proportion of loan balances to loan amounts is too high	33	3	33
Amount owed on delinquent accounts	34	31	34
Serious delinquency and public record or collection filed	38	38	38
Serious delinquency	39	39	39
Derogatory public record or collection filed	40	40	40

FICO Risk Factor Reason Codes [Bargaineering]
(Photo: Egan Snow)

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