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I don't know what to think about this....
In the past month I have gotten 3 alerts saying my score is going down -6 due to recent changes in my accounts. So I look into it and all this is from my BoA card that I have $0 balance on for a few years now; changes to the account that I have NO control over. Also, once I looked into it I noticed I had not seen my card since we have moved, so I called them up a few weeks ago saying I couldn't find it etc. and the man said he would put my old one as "lost" and issue a new card. I just got an alert yesterday saying my score went down another 6 points because of this reported "lost" card! I'm so upset - I've worked hard to get this really good credit score and now this just bumped me down into the lower bracket. Not sure what to do! If it wouldn't affect my score I would just close the account and be done with them forever...
If you had a $0 balance on the BOA card for a few years now, that is NOT a beef against proper credit scoring.
That is extremely admirable from a financial perspective, but not necessarily from a FICO perspective.
FICO is not a rewards program for not using credit. It is a risk analysis of how you have recently used credit, with a projection, called a credit score, of your potential for making timely payments in approx. the next two years.
With "a few years" of non-use of the BOA card, it has little current value in risk analysis.
Dont blame BOA. Just thank them if they will retain your account info after years of inactivity, and use it once in a while if you want it to help your credit score. At least once every three months.
I am aware that FICO is not a rewards program for not using credit - I'm not sure where you got that from my original post. Can you give any insight on why my score has gone down 18 points within one month recently because of changes to terms on the account? When I look up the reason, inactivity on the account is never mentioned as a reason for it going down, just says because of recent changes to the account. Why now is what I'm wondering. Also -6 just the other day for the reason of reporting a lost card with them does not sound fair at all.
@Anonymous wrote:
I can't see there being a -6 change for reporting a lost card - that wouldn't even be reported to the CRB - go through your credit report from the day before and the day after (if you have them) the change in score and compare line by line and see what else has changed
I don't think the lost card would dock any points either - However, I DID see a "lost card" notice on my GF's CR.
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I can't see there being a -6 change for reporting a lost card - that wouldn't even be reported to the CRB - go through your credit report from the day before and the day after (if you have them) the change in score and compare line by line and see what else has changed
Cards definitely report as "lost or stolen" on CRs. A small decrease in score is possible for this but should be quickly recovered.
However, I don't believe there could be any decrease in OPs score for"change in terms" on an account. Credit terms are not reported to CBs. Unless you mean that your credit limit was reduced? That could definitely result in a loss of points.
I think lost/stolen cards figure into your avg age of accounts, as do other closed cards, so if your lost card is young, it can hurt at first, depending on the math.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.