Can re-bucketing cause a 40 point drop?

[brentwood]

I am sitting here trying to figure out what happened to my score and if a re-bucketing could have been responsible for my going from a 626 to a 586.  Any expertise from the board would be greatly appreciated. 

Most of the threads on bucket changes have had folks reporting a five to twenty point change, and I haven't seen anybody with a forty point drop, particularly when starting in the low 600's.   

There have been no changes to my credit profile per ScoreWatch.  No inquiries since one in April for a utility company.  I was scheduled to have a couple of 30-day lates age past two years next month and a 60-day late age to two years in December, but I would still have one more 30-day late left from the last two years after that.  There are no collections, derogs, or serious delinquencies on my account and never have been, so new scorecards from that perspective aren't likely.  My accounts aged by one more month, but my oldest was already well into year 13 and didn't hit the 14th year breakpoint (if there is such a thing), so again its hard for me to see this causing a scorecard change. 

The only change I've made in the last month is to chop away at my biggest negative, which is utilization.  But that has only been minor thus far, getting it down from the upper 90's to the lower 90's - I wouldn't have thought that would cause a scorecard jump.   

Does anybody have a hunch as to whether this is a bucket change or something else?  I was hoping that my plan to get my util down to below 50% the next few months would pay some immediate dividends with regards to score increases.   

[haulingthescoreup]

This shouldn't be a bucket change. As long as that 60 is on there, you're still in the "dirty" bucket. Lates aging past two years don't change your bucket, although they ought to help your scores.

I'm assuming that you pulled your report when your score dropped. What are the negatives on the first report, in order, and what are they on the second?

And did you click all the way through the screens to make sure that someone hasn't stuck a collection or judgment on your report? I never even think to look at those screens (not bragging, I've just never had anything there, either.)

The other thing to do, tedious as it is, is print out both reports and go through with a yellow highlighter, matching each account one by one. Another possibility is that one of your lenders recoded a negative, changed the date on it, something like that.

Even if you don't print your reports, be sure to use the Printable Version option to expand all the entries. Lots of unpleasant things can turn up this way.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 11-16-2009 04:11 PM

[brentwood]

Thanks for the insight.  I took your advice and looked at both EQ reports and all the negatives are the same, no new collections or judgements.  What it did have was a vehicle loan from September that began reporting.  I was really shocked that the auto loan caused a 40 point drop given that I had run the simulator to see what the impact might be and it showed zero to little change from a vehicle loan.  

To get another basis for comparison, I decided to pull my TU report, and matched up all the accounts to confirm that the month-to-date reporting was apples to apples with EQ.  Revolving balances the same, number of outstanding accounts very close (there is one more that reports TU only with no lates in its history) and there are actually two more inquiries on TU than on EQ.  The TU report came back with a 647 FICO, with the new vehicle loan reporting since September.  Also I have an Experian FAKO tracking service, and although I know it's not exactly the same, there has been no change in that FAKO score (640) since the vehicle loan began reporting to Experian in September.  

I know each CRA has different scoring models, but it is very shocking to see that kind of EQ score drop.  I will have to hope that the EX FICO is closer to TU so that the middle score is ok.  

[haulingthescoreup]

I suppose it's the new account ding. Also, when a vehicle loan (or mortgage) begins reporting, that first month it's showing up as 100% util. As soon as the first payment shows, there's generally the beginnings of a score recovery. You might be dealing with a double whammy --new credit and 100% installment util on an account. Maybe even a triple whammy if the inq for the loan just posted as well.

Although installment util isn't nearly as big a factor as revolving util, it does appear that 100% is not pretty. Luckily, it only lasts a month.

Do you have really long history? (either oldest account or AAoA) It seems that the longer the history, the harder the spanking for a new account.

[brentwood]

I think my history is average - oldest account is 13 years and 9 months with an average account age of 6 years. I really didn't realize that the utilization on an installment would hurt that badly.

Any thoughts on why EQ got whacked but TU and EX PLUS held steady if they are all reporting essentially the same accounts, balances and number of inquiries?  At this point, that's what really has me confused the most.  I'm concerned that the TU 98 is mid 600's but the TU 04 would be closer to EQ in the upper 500's.  Iis that a possibility?  Thanks.

[llecs]

It's not the util on the installment that hurts, it is the new account that produces a ding. On avg., I've lost 20-25 points with each new account reporting. If AAoA drops by 1 yr or more, then the damage would be greater. Over the summer, I lost over 50 when I added a couple of new accounts with a drop in AAoA.

The EQ and TU FICO scores use a different formula. I've found that EQ hates me the most when I add new accounts. You can't compare the PLUS score as it isn't even remotely close to the real deal. Hard telling what your EX FICO did.

Different between TU98 and TU04? Likely. For most, the TU04 is lower than TU98 when comparing lender's pull with their own on the same day. Though I have seen some higher. If you run into a lender that pulled TU04, you can always shop and ask around and find a lender that uses TU98. There's still quite a few out there that use '98.