Credit card balance decreased, FICO dropped 24 points

[Anonymous]

I have one credit card, and completely paid it off.  I got a FICO alert that my FICO score dropped 24 points, and my credit card balance decrease was the cause.  I thought my FICO score would go up!  Why did this happen?

[Anonymous]

You don't want to pay your credit cards all down to zero.  You want to leave a total utilization of about 5-10% on your credit cards.  This looks better & will raise your score.

[Anonymous]

Just had a similar experience. Had a Mastercard with a 108 balance, made my standard 100 payment a month, which dropped the balance to 10 (I think the new 2 was interest), and took a hit of 2 points on my experian score. Very frustrating, as I am trying to build up my score...Am trying to sort out whether I should try to maintain a bit more of a balance on that card, which I usually keep free in order to have it for emergencies.

[expatCanuck]

Similar but different experience. 

A reported card balance dropped from ~65% to just over 50% utilization (still a few $K left on balance), yet my score took a 2 point hit.

Whassup wit' dat?

Will be interested to see what happens when our new mortgage is reported.  Selling our previous home last month & paying off that mortgage & HELOC dropped the FICO 11 points.

[Anonymous]

It does sort of feel like d*mned if you do, d*mned if you don't sometimes, doesn't it?!?

[lord_kinbote]

I thought the objective to the game was to have one card with a small utilization of 7% or under and the remaining cards be at 0%? or are all cards suppose to have small balance?

[HiLine]

This is one of the reasons why having only one credit card is sub-optimal.