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Did you pull a full report at any time before the drop? If so, you can just pull a full report now and compare to see what's changed.
If you were using Scorewatch, did you have an alert on the days your cards changed? Balance increases and delinquencies should generate alerts, balance decreases and accounts aging / falling off your report do not.
It could be lag time. Scores tend to go up with time - maybe an account became a year old for that 9 points, for instance, and the 35 point hit came when the card posted the big balance from the trip. This could be particularly true if the card is AMEX, because they usually report the status of your account two months ago to the credit bureaus. In this case, your score should go back up when the check posts to the credit report.
It could also be something like goodies falling off your account (say, an account you closed ten years ago that was holding up your average age of accounts) or baddies being added in late (say, a company just now reporting a late payment from six months ago).
indianinnj wrote:
I wanted to monitor my score after my international trip, in which I did lot of shopping on one of my credit card to avoid taking large sums of local currency. When I came back from my trip I saw my score was in the 689 range, as I had signed up for my free monthly service with Myfico. I had a large balance on one of my Credit card due to my shopping, which I am planning to pay off in the next 2 months. In few weeks to my surprise I saw my score actually jumped up to 9 points to 698 eventhough I had large balances on my CC. Then few days later despite me sending a big check towards my debt, my score decreased drastically about 35 points. I am totally confused on how the scoring process works, I am also planning to apply for mortgage(refi) this year and want to bring my score back to low 700s before I do that, however it is surprising that as soon as I start paying my debt down, my score also seems to be decreasing. I would appreciate any suggestion or possible causes from the group on my case.