FAKO (CreditKarma) reports a 79 pt decrease! Say whaaaat? No collections, 2 student loans in good standing (though it did go up $23 for interest), and only a handful of cards; it is reporting my new cards but I only have a 17% util between them. I've worked diligently for the ast month to get my scores up, app'd for a couple cards, approved, broke 700s and then plummeted.
How accurate is FAKO when reporting losses such as this? When will the new cards begin to help me? They're my first cards. 
@RaeC wrote:FAKO (CreditKarma) reports a 79 pt decrease! Say whaaaat? No collections, 2 student loans in good standing (though it did go up $23 for interest), and only a handful of cards; it is reporting my new cards but I only have a 17% util between them. I've worked diligently for the ast month to get my scores up, app'd for a couple cards, approved, broke 700s and then plummeted.
How accurate is FAKO when reporting losses such as this? When will the new cards begin to help me? They're my first cards.
Not very accurate.Credit karma uses vantage score 3 a recent model to give fico a challenge made by the 3 credit bureaus.Its a great tool for updates and monitoring your credit.Many say not a big deal but vantage score 3 will gain ground sooner or later but for now I don't count on credit karma for scores just monitoring my file quickly.Plus after much research it seems the new vantage 3 doesn't like new credit so recent injuries and accounts is what factors drop.If you ghave. 700 fake score chances are your fico scores are higher.At any rate I hope you pull or k ow your true fico score 8 score because that's what about 90% of lenders use.Even if they use internal systems it still will use data from true fico scores.
My Fico (TU score, as it was the one reporting the significant drop) from myfico was 700, it dropped to 699, and now 690. FAKO is reporting it was 706 and that it dropped to 627.
When will my ccs that were opened in February begin really working for me with slow increase in my score? They did boost it dramatically already. I'm just ready to garden. 
@RaeC wrote:FAKO (CreditKarma) reports a 79 pt decrease! Say whaaaat? No collections, 2 student loans in good standing (though it did go up $23 for interest), and only a handful of cards; it is reporting my new cards but I only have a 17% util between them. I've worked diligently for the ast month to get my scores up, app'd for a couple cards, approved, broke 700s and then plummeted.
How accurate is FAKO when reporting losses such as this? When will the new cards begin to help me? They're my first cards.
Sure, opening new accounts and having them 1st report balances can result in a smack down. No worries, it's quite temporary and score will recover naturally - probably within 90 days. Note: given your young/thin file, reporting non zero balances on more than one card generally causes an additional score drop.
How many cards should you have? Three cards is sufficient but 5 gives you some added flexibility. If you just got a couple, wait 6 months before considering another one (assuming there is a need). I have 6 cards but, quite a few posters have reported 850 scores with 4 cards. - If your "handful of cards" is 4 or more, stay with what you have to avoid additional hard inquiries. Instead, consider going after some credit limit increases once your new cards reach 6 months.
Side note: Hard inquiries factor into Fico scoring models for 12 months. They factor into the VantageScore models for 24 months.
CKs VantageScore 3.0, it does score factors differently than Fico 08 (and Fico 04/Fico 98 mortgage). Even so, your recent activities represent a substantial disturbance and the Fico models would also drop your score. Magnitude may be less with Fico but is model dependent. I'd expect Fico 04 scores to suffer more than Fico 08 because Fico 04 exhibits greater sensitivity to # - % open CC accounts reporting a non zero balance.
For best results keep aggregate CC utilization under 9%. It's ok to allow balances to report on more than one card periodically but, when you are within 3 months of applying for a mortgage, only allow one card to report a non zero balance each month if possible.
