My score dropped by ~60 points !! Why ??

[Anonymous]

Hi guys .. So I'm a student and currently have two Credit Cards to my name: one from Bank of America (Limit: $1500 ~ about 9 months old), and one from CapitalOne (Limit: $500 ~ about 2 months old).

Up until about a week ago, my score (as reported by CapitalOne through TransUnion) was about 728. Today I checked and it's 673 !! I have no idea what caused the drop. My only guess is that 2 days ago I made a purchase totalling about $260 on my CapitalOne card, and that's the only unpaid purchase I have on it. Could this single transaction have caused my score to drop by 60 points instantly ?! I know that its a good rule to not have a utilization of more than 20% ~ 30%, but I thought a one-time 50% utilization shouldn't hurt too much. Was my assumption wrong ?

Is there a way I can undo this thing ? Maybe pay CapitalOne (even though the due date is 3 weeks away), or return the item I bought for $260 ?

The only other thing I can think of is that I use my BofA CC a lot, and spend about $700 ~ $800 per month using that. But whenever my balance for it reaches about $350 or so, I pay it. So I make about 2 payments for my BofA card every month. However I've been doing this for some months now and it never caused a problem with my score before.

[Anonymous]

A couple of things.  One, yes the score drop was due to you hitting very high utilization on that card at > 50%.  However, don't sweat it for two reasons.  One, utilization-related score changes are volitile in both directions meaning that the second you bring the utilization back to whatever amount you had it at your score will instantly go back to where it was.  Two, Capital One Credit Wise does not give you a true FICO 08 score, so don't believe what it says anyway as it's not all too relevant.

Unless you're planning on applying for more credit sometime soon there's no real reason to worry about temporary score changes related to utilization.  As long as you can pay off your card balance every month you'll be fine and on your way to nice credit health.  With that $500 CL card though, I personally would stick to small purchases on it and try to keep your balance around or under $100 until they give you your first CLI to probably $1000.  Then you'll have a little more wiggle room.  Your other card with 3x the room to play can absorb a larger (relatively) purchase. 

Bottom line though, don't sweat your score "drop" as it's not a very worthy score that you're looking at and as soon as you pay that $260 purchase off and it reports your score will return to it's previous number.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi guys .. So I'm a student and currently have two Credit Cards to my name: one from Bank of America (Limit: $1500 ~ about 9 months old), and one from CapitalOne (Limit: $500 ~ about 2 months old).

Up until about a week ago, my score (as reported by CapitalOne through TransUnion) was about 728. Today I checked and it's 673 !! I have no idea what caused the drop. My only guess is that 2 days ago I made a purchase totalling about $260 on my CapitalOne card, and that's the only unpaid purchase I have on it. Could this single transaction have caused my score to drop by 60 points instantly ?! I know that its a good rule to not have a utilization of more than 20% ~ 30%, but I thought a one-time 50% utilization shouldn't hurt too much. Was my assumption wrong ?

Is there a way I can undo this thing ? Maybe pay CapitalOne (even though the due date is 3 weeks away), or return the item I bought for $260 ?

The only other thing I can think of is that I use my BofA CC a lot, and spend about $700 ~ $800 per month using that. But whenever my balance for it reaches about $350 or so, I pay it. So I make about 2 payments for my BofA card every month. However I've been doing this for some months now and it never caused a problem with my score before.

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1. The Capital One credit score is Vantage 3.0, not FICO.

2. Vantage 3.0 is more volatile than FICO, and is more sensitive to differences in utilization.

3. Utilization, in Vantage and in FICO, is a completely short term phenomenon, it has no effect on your credit score going forward.

4. If you have 2 credit cards, and let 1 of them report at zero, the other at 9% or less, you'll be optimized for your scores.

[CreditMagic7]

Personally Vantage score is the biggest joke i've seen yet in FAKE scoring models and they know it no matter what anyone says in support about it.

For example CK uses that same type of PHONY vantage scoring system and when 2 previously hidden accounts of $20K each hit the reports (with over 12 months associated good history on them) they showed an 80 point drop.

Completely ridiculous and asinine. My authentic FICO numbers barely budged from that event.

Genuine trademarked FICO scores are what you need to pay attention to. THOSE DO MATTER.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply guys. I paid off that charge yesterday, so I hope my score will go back to 720ish in a few days.

[CreditMagic7]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the reply guys. I paid off that charge yesterday, so I hope my score will go back to 720ish in a few days.

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Keep us updated on that if you will how it turns out.

This is always a work-in-progress

[RonM21]

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@CreditMagic7 wrote:

Personally Vantage score is the biggest joke i've seen yet in FAKE scoring models and they know it no matter what anyone says in support about it.

For example CK uses that same type of PHONY vantage scoring system and when 2 previously hidden accounts of $20K each hit the reports (with over 12 months associated good history on them) they showed an 80 point drop.

Completely ridiculous and asinine. My authentic FICO numbers barely budged from that event.

Genuine trademarked FICO scores are what you need to pay attention to. THOSE DO MATTER.

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These scoring models can definitely be all over the place. Hard to disagree with your point.