FICO goes UP after inquiries?? anybody ever heard of that?

[beautybrainsbooty]

One Cap One pull, and one USAA pull on EQ and my score went from 674 to 678. Is that possible?? And how does that work?

[llecs]

Is this via Score Watch? Or is it a comparison between scores provided by CapOne and USAA? If the latter, how long apart were the pulls?

[beautybrainsbooty]

via scorewatch. the pulls were hard and one day apart. got the notification on USAA today and it went up. I was flabbergasted. However, I don't have any credit cards and these were my first attempts to dip my toe in the water. Could that have anything to do with it?? In other news, USAA approved me but wants an identity verification which I will happily send since I have no choice. I've never heard of that..deep sigh

[llecs]

The alerts from SW can be misleading. It'll throw out EQ FICO changes at the same time of receiving a credit alert (e.g. an added inquiry). Your score change within the SW alert isn't necessarily a product of that credit alert. For example, I once got a SW alert for a 20 pt increase due to a new inquiry. The added inquiry didn't give me 20 but other changes on my CR, combined with the inquiry, resulted in a net gain of 20. As with your situation, there could have been other changes on your CR that resulted in a small net gain like improved util, aging accts, dropped balances, etc.

[beautybrainsbooty]

I see. Other factors play in..gotcha. Ok, thank you so much! this scoring thing is amazing. I am still wrapping my head around the fact that one score can make such an impact on my life. Many, many thanks for answering my question