Really?

[Anonymous]

Got a FICO alert this morning for an account balance change with Experian. Said credit card increase of 66% or some high number. Balance on my CO card went from $3 to $5, up 2 whole dollars and Experian dropped 8 points! EQ and TU stayed the same. Dont make any sense at all!!! 

[azguy13]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Got a FICO alert this morning for an account balance change with Experian. Said credit card increase of 66% or some high number. Balance on my CO card went from $3 to $5, up 2 whole dollars and Experian dropped 8 points! EQ and TU stayed the same. Dont make any sense at all!!! 

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Well, if the account doesn't report a CL then technically it was increased by 66.66% which could lower your score. The drop was based off the percentage of credit used, not the monetary amount. This is the #1 reason why people constantly seek CLIs... purely for Utilization purposes. 

[Gunnar419]

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@azguy13 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Got a FICO alert this morning for an account balance change with Experian. Said credit card increase of 66% or some high number. Balance on my CO card went from $3 to $5, up 2 whole dollars and Experian dropped 8 points! EQ and TU stayed the same. Dont make any sense at all!!! 

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Well, if the account doesn't report a CL then technically it was increased by 66.66% which could lower your score. The drop was based off the percentage of credit used, not the monetary amount. This is the #1 reason why people constantly seek CLIs... purely for Utilization purposes. 

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It's still one of the many irrational aspects of credit scoring. Nobody, under any scoring model, should ever lose 8 points over a $2 increase in a balance. Sorry that happened to you, OP.

[azguy13]

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@Gunnar419 wrote:

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@azguy13 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Got a FICO alert this morning for an account balance change with Experian. Said credit card increase of 66% or some high number. Balance on my CO card went from $3 to $5, up 2 whole dollars and Experian dropped 8 points! EQ and TU stayed the same. Dont make any sense at all!!! 

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Well, if the account doesn't report a CL then technically it was increased by 66.66% which could lower your score. The drop was based off the percentage of credit used, not the monetary amount. This is the #1 reason why people constantly seek CLIs... purely for Utilization purposes. 

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It's still one of the many irrational aspects of credit scoring. Nobody, under any scoring model, should ever lose 8 points over a $2 increase in a balance. Sorry that happened to you, OP.

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I agree completely. It is the joy of an algorithm over actual human review. Unfortunately it will always be an algorithm. The nice thing is that it is only temporary and unless OP is preparing to app for something, it is no big deal. I used to get stressed out over my score dropping a few points until I realized that it really doesn't matter. When the time comes to app, I will prep my report a month or so prior to maximize my score potential. 

For example, I am considering apping for the Ritz card so over the next month or two I will put my overall utl around 3% to maximize my score. Right now I'm around 15% because I didn't PIF before my statements cut. 

[Anonymous]

My power company reports to the CRA. If my bill goes up I get the "has increased significantly" but like azguy13 said my UTI is always 1-5% so it never affects my score because of my overall avalible credit. When I didn't have much it was like a yo-yo.

[Anonymous]

myFICO alerts don't report every change. It's very likely the 8 point drop is due to some other reason(s).

For example, deletion of an old, closed account can affect score due to reduced average age of accounts and/or reduced credit mix (ie. car loan, mortgage, etc). Likewise with an old collection (paid or not) updating.

Many here pull reports more frequently via other paid services, such as CCT (daily updates for EX and monthly for the other two), and/or free ones, such as Credit Karma (updates at least weekly).

myFICO is great for alerts on large changes, but the real reason can be way off due to other changes that didn't trigger an alert. An extreme example is myFICO alerting on a hard pull with an increased score due to other changes. Giving one the false impression that a HP can sometimes improve one's credit score - in reality, it never does.

[elim]

I hate em' both (EX and FICO).  You got the worst of both worlds.

[RobertEG]

The score change may not have been attributable only to the slight change in balance.

If the account is currently delinquent, as is apparent by its charge-off status, the reporting of the update in balance also was handled by FICO as an update in the derog by showing it remains delinquent.  Update on delinquent accounts can affect the payment history scoring.

[SunriseEarth]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Got a FICO alert this morning for an account balance change with Experian. Said credit card increase of 66% or some high number. Balance on my CO card went from $3 to $5, up 2 whole dollars and Experian dropped 8 points! EQ and TU stayed the same. Dont make any sense at all!!! 

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Just to clarify, do you mean that a charged-off balance updated or a Capital One card?

[Anonymous]

Capital One Card.