FICO dropped with $39 credit!

[bichonmom]

Well, I guess I am paying the piper for my 3 new CCs. It's just odd that it happened at the exact same time as the Walmart balance update.

I ran some scenarios on SW estimator and it looks like a dept store card lowers your score; whereas a bank CC has a better chance of increasing it. Plus, I know I zapped my AAoA, which was nil to begin with. I guess the best thing I can do is hope for CLIs w/the CCs I have and hope that in time my score w/rebound from this... and improve overall. I *really* want to be over 700.

[CreditAble]

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@bichonmom wrote:

My balance didn't go down to 0. It went from $150 to $111. And my util% did not change at all. It was 14% last week and it's still 14% as of today. So the $39 credit did not affect my util% at all.

1 inq & 3 new CCs (for 7 total) did not change my FICO at all. But one CC going from $150 to $111 caused it to drop 7 points.

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Unless I miss read your prior post, didn't you state that your credit score was exactly the same when you had $0 balance as it was when you had $150? When the balance became $111, you lost 7 points.

You state that your utility didn't change (14% last week and today), but did your balance change by $39 or not? If the balance was different (lower) by even $39 it is still possible to loose 7 points. The point I was trying to make was that  your score can go down even if your utility goes down. Even if your utility when rounded up to the nearest whole percent is still 14%, you can still get a score drop of 7 points with a $39 reduction in balance.

[Anonymous]

To really answer the question, why did the score drop, well the answer is you returned an item. To the store this is  a bad thing, just like a late payment. Because it was not a late payment, it can not be placed on the report. This is part of the scoring that we do not ever see or know about. I agree the others, don't worry about it. Your score will return to the previous number most likely after the next rundown of the scoring system in the next 90 days. I have seen this over and over again, in my consulting practice. This is really no big deal. If the number keeps declining, then a strong chance of bad information has been fed into the system. If in 90 days the problem has not corrected it self, then get a new copy of your credit report (and pay for it) find the error, and dispute it.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

To really answer the question, why did the score drop, well the answer is you returned an item. To the store this is  a bad thing, just like a late payment. Because it was not a late payment, it can not be placed on the report. This is part of the scoring that we do not ever see or know about. I agree the others, don't worry about it. Your score will return to the previous number most likely after the next rundown of the scoring system in the next 90 days. I have seen this over and over again, in my consulting practice. This is really no big deal. If the number keeps declining, then a strong chance of bad information has been fed into the system. If in 90 days the problem has not corrected it self, then get a new copy of your credit report (and pay for it) find the error, and dispute it.

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Whaaaaaat?????

I don't know what kind of "consulting practice" you have, but this is absurd. The ONLY things that are considered for scoring are on your credit reports.

Grumpy stores do not affect your scores, unless they put some sort of incorrect info on your reports.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@bichonmom wrote:

Yes, I got a SW alert with 4 items:

This e-mail is to notify you that the following changes have occurred on your credit file:

The target credit score you configured for notification has been passed or reached.

Your credit score changed and as a result you may qualify for a different loan rate.

an account balance decreased by a specified amount

an account balance decreased by a specified percentage

The week before, when all of the CCs were on my CR, I pulled my EQ FICO and it was 663. Hadn't changed at all from before the new CCs reporting.

Then I rec'd the email, and the only change to my CR was the $39 cr on Walmart acct.

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Any birthdays? Any change in AAoA or oldest account age? Any negatives get a year older? (For instance, from 1y 11m to 2y 0m.) Anything fall off your reports? (This is easy to overlook.)

How long have the three new cards been showing up on your reports? Did you actually pull a score after all three showed up, or were you expecting (hoping, praying, wondering if) Scorewatch would alert you?

I'm having problems with SW again.

[bichonmom]

In going back over my USAA archives, I found that my only collection dropped off of my EQ rept early. It was due to drop off in Jan/Feb. It's still showing on EX and TU. I don't know why it dropped off early. I had been counting on my score going up when it came off. It was very dissapointing to see my score go down instead of up now that the collection dropped off. No more baddies, so it looks like the rebucketing sank me.

My score just dropped even more. I think it's 630 now. I lost about 20 points when the Barclay's iPad charge reported. My total Barclay's CL is $2200 and the iPad charge was around $750.

My score has gone from 675 in May/June to 630 now. Really bummed. I plan on paying the balances reporting, except for Barclays, and see what happens w/my score. But I think between my AAoA dropping due to new CCs and rebucketing, my FICO is in the toitie.

[RobertEG]

With the unkowns in the FICO scoring process, it can be frustrating to understand how shifts affect score.

Rebucketing, or shift in categorization of your file, could be a factor.

Even within the same bucket, apparently simple shifts that one might not focus on, such as individual card (vs overall)  utils, or percent of cards now reporting a balance, could change, even with overall % util staying the same, and result in a "mysterious" score shift. 

I would not be as concerned with shifts in score based on util as I would in other categories, as % util has no historical memory. If, for example, one card shoots up in % util as compared with the others, or if the percent of total cards reporting a balance, your score would change.  However, it is recoverable in subsequent months.

The mysteries of the proprietary FICO bucketing and scoring determinations are endless......

[bichonmom]

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@RobertEG wrote:

With the unkowns in the FICO scoring process, it can be frustrating to understand how shifts affect score.

Rebucketing, or shift in categorization of your file, could be a factor.

Even within the same bucket, apparently simple shifts that one might not focus on, such as individual card (vs overall)  utils, or percent of cards now reporting a balance, could change, even with overall % util staying the same, and result in a "mysterious" score shift. 

I would not be as concerned with shifts in score based on util as I would in other categories, as % util has no historical memory. If, for example, one card shoots up in % util as compared with the others, or if the percent of total cards reporting a balance, your score would change.  However, it is recoverable in subsequent months.

The mysteries of the proprietary FICO bucketing and scoring determinations are endless......

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and frustrating.