Paid Account Causes MyFico Score Decrease

[Anonymous]

I paid off a car loan and my credit score DECREASED BY 6 POINTS!!!  **bleep**???  And what can I do about it?

[llecs]

Was that your only open installment (e.g. mortgage, car, studentloan, etc.)?

Which score did you buy? EQ? TU? Or did this come via a SW alert?

I paid off my last and only loan (also a car) about 3 years ago. Got sick of paying 19.9% interest and got very aggressive about paying it. Knowing exactly when they reported with an updated $0 balance, I pulled my two FICO scores the day before and the day after to compare the score changes. EQ increased 7 but TU dropped 5. I wasn't expecting a siggnificant increase because installment util is a very tiny part of FICO scoring which is a good thing. You wouldn't want to be dinged for adding a $500k mortgage for example. I've been told by a former FICO admin that installment TLs count whether paid or unpaid, but my drop was also puzzling as nothing else changed on my reports because I pulled it the day before and after. In the scheme of things 6 isn't much.

[Anonymous]

It came via a SW alert. And no, it's not my only installment. Although it's a small hit, it doesn't make sense. I just paid off a motorcycle loan also, so now I'm afraid my score will go even lower. I about ready to refi my house, so this is worrisome.

Since you're the moderator, on another note, when I tried to enter the forums for a second time, I was prompted to "complete my profile". I already had a user name, RT57, but when I entered that one, it error messaged that the name was taken. The only way I see to enter the forums is through the "Connect with Community" button. Each time I use that button, I am prompted to "complete profile". Am I missing something?

Thanks in advance. 

[llecs]

SW alerts offer a net score change and will throw out a couple of reasons why your score could have changed. I'm guessing it was a credit alert for the status change on the loan. Don't rely 100% by associating the score change with the reason behind the score change. If the loan status changed, there could have been other things happening on your EQ CR like other balance changes, changes to util, etc. I don't think you would have seen any score change at all, but 6 pts could easily be caused by these other changes.

I too have been prompted with the same. I think it's a known issue, but isn't that common. If it happens again, click the back button on the browser and try re-logging in again. That's always worked for me.