Credit score keeps dropping for no apparent reason. Help!

[Anonymous]

I get a quarterly credit score update as well as notificatiosn whenever anyone queries my credit.  For no reason that I can see my credit score has dropped allot for two or three quarters running. Theyve dropped from 790-800 to 745-775.  No new credit. No closed accounts. Little debt but thats nothing new.  I literally have seen no changes reported now for 6 months on of the three bureaus. Whats happening ?

[Anonymous]

Hi suncat - and welcome!

To respond to your question - Stuff ages.

Your AAofA gets older.

The time since you've opened your most recent account gets longer.

Length of credit history gets older.

And, of course, time since any baddies (if there's ever any there) gets longer.

All of this stuff can get you rebucketed or even rebinned within your current bucket.  That compares you with a different group of folks, and that can change your score.

Just keep doing the right stuff - be ontime - keep utilization down - keep number of accounts reporting a balance down - stuff like that.  It'll all be good.

Because FICO is a seemingly infinitely complex algorithm it's impossible to predict or even understand all the ups and downs.  And it can be frustrating to see a drop when you're doing all the right things.  But if you're being rebucketed and compared to a more stellar group of FICO'tees, then with time your score can climb even higher than it could before. 

Always make sure you're checking FICO scores rather than FAKO credit scores.  Your FICO's for Equifax and TransUnion are available here.  FICO's for Experian are available through a lender's pull (or PSECU if you're a member).

And, of course, you're very wise to check out those credit reports to make sure there's no inaccuracies.  A great source for complete credit reports is  to pull your free annual credit report from each of the CRA's. 

[laz98]

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@Anonymous wrote:

To respond to your question - Stuff ages.

Your AAofA gets older.

The time since you've opened your most recent account gets longer.

Length of credit history gets older.

And, of course, time since any baddies (if there's ever any there) gets longer.

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aren't these all pretty positive things, though?  i'm in the same boat as the OP, the only changes on my reports are more age & lower util (although it's not as dramatic as before, since it's much lower now).  scores keep dropping though!  it's very discouraging.

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I get a quarterly credit score update as well as notificatiosn whenever anyone queries my credit.  For no reason that I can see my credit score has dropped allot for two or three quarters running. Theyve dropped from 790-800 to 745-775.  No new credit. No closed accounts. Little debt but thats nothing new.  I literally have seen no changes reported now for 6 months on of the three bureaus. Whats happening ?

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Welcome to the forums!

Which service are you using to monitor your scores?

[Anonymous]

I use identity guard which in tirn monitors the 2 main bureaus.

[llecs]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I use identity guard which in tirn monitors the 2 main bureaus.

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This could be good news. Identity Guard doesn't offer FICO scores. They offer a non-FICO score we call a FAKO. Specifically, this FAKO is called a CreditXpert score which runs off a different score range than FICO's. The interesting part is that your FAKO can increase while FICO's decreases, or vice-versa. There's no way to predict what your FICO score is based on a FAKO and certainly they never correlate with regards to increasing or decreasing. I've seen some posts where posters relied on a FAKO only to be surpriced when their corresponding FICO is as much as 100 points higher. In short, if the CreditXpert score dropped, your FICO could have gone either way.

[marty56]

Asuming a clean report and you didn't apply for any new accounts the most likely reason your FICO could start going down would be for reported util or number of accounts reporting a balance.  Even if you PIF each month, it is the reported balance that affects your score.  With FAKO scores, who knows why they change.