Put $21 on a credit card - One score went WAY down, the other one WAY up!

[Anonymous]

I will NEVER understand credit scores. I increased the balance on my credit card by $21. Equifax went DOWN 18 points, and Experian went UP 12 points. That makes NO sense to me. And over $21?! I ended up just paying $100 on my credit card bill to hopefully counter-act the 18 points Equifax went down, however, I never notice an impact on my score after I pay my monthly bill (and I always pay about 5X the minimum payment). I'm trying to build up my score so that I can go on a home loan with my husband, and now I'm afraid to put ANY money on my credit cards because it'll go WAY down! I'm not even sure which one the lender will use. The Equifax is about 50 points lower than the TransUnion and Experian. 

Any help/answers/comments/etc will be much appreciated. 

[StartingOver10]

What scores are you measuring?

FICO 8 or FICO mortgage scores or Vantage Scores (Credit Karma uses Vantage) or something else?

Mortgage lenders use FICO mortgage scores and not FICO 8 scores.  Here is a good thread on the various scores FICO has available http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/The-many-flavors-of-FICO-Editions-version...

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I will NEVER understand credit scores. I increased the balance on my credit card by $21. Equifax went DOWN 18 points, and Experian went UP 12 points. That makes NO sense to me. And over $21?! I ended up just paying $100 on my credit card bill to hopefully counter-act the 18 points Equifax went down, however, I never notice an impact on my score after I pay my monthly bill (and I always pay about 5X the minimum payment). I'm trying to build up my score so that I can go on a home loan with my husband, and now I'm afraid to put ANY money on my credit cards because it'll go WAY down! I'm not even sure which one the lender will use. The Equifax is about 50 points lower than the TransUnion and Experian. 

Any help/answers/comments/etc will be much appreciated. 

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I feel pretty certain that your score would not go up or down over increasing a balance by $21, but would need to know how many accounts you have, and the limits and balances, before hazarding a guess as to why your score went down.

[Anonymous]

I have only 1 card. And yes, it's because my balance went up $21. That is what the alert states. It makes no sense to me. 

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have only 1 card. And yes, it's because my balance went up $21. That is what the alert states. It makes no sense to me. 

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No.

The $21 balance change is just what triggered the monitoring to update.

It is not necessarily the reason for the score change - just the triggering event to update the score.

As there are other changes that do not cause triggers (and it's a different set per CRA), those other changes, while not causing an alert on their own, are then reflected in the score when an alert does trigger.

Yeah... the alert messages really don't make that clear, I know.

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm trying to build up my score so that I can go on a home loan with my husband, and now I'm afraid to put ANY money on my credit cards because it'll go WAY down! I'm not even sure which one the lender will use. The Equifax is about 50 points lower than the TransUnion and Experian. 

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Ah. For mortgages, the answer is "all three", and yet "none of the scores you're looking at".

The scores used for mortgages are not the FICO 8 scores that the monitoring reports on...

The scores used for mortgages are only listed in the "FICO Score Versions" section of the 3B Report, and do not update with the alerts - you need to either pay for a one-time update, or wait for the quarterly free one with the subscription.

The scores you need are:

• Equifax FICO Score 5

• Experian FICO Score 2

• TransUnion FICO Score 4

And of those, the lender will use the middle score of the three (not the average - just the middle score, whichever it is for you).

If both you and your husband are jointly applying for a mortgage, they will look at both of your middle scores, and use the lower of the two.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I will NEVER understand credit scores. I increased the balance on my credit card by $21. Equifax went DOWN 18 points, and Experian went UP 12 points. That makes NO sense to me. And over $21?! I ended up just paying $100 on my credit card bill to hopefully counter-act the 18 points Equifax went down, however, I never notice an impact on my score after I pay my monthly bill (and I always pay about 5X the minimum payment). I'm trying to build up my score so that I can go on a home loan with my husband, and now I'm afraid to put ANY money on my credit cards because it'll go WAY down! I'm not even sure which one the lender will use. The Equifax is about 50 points lower than the TransUnion and Experian. 

Any help/answers/comments/etc will be much appreciated. 

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Since you're interested in maximizing your scores for a home loan, my recommendation would be to take out 2 more bank cards, then be sure that each month 2 of them report a zero balance and one reports a balance of 9% or less.

[elim]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

I will NEVER understand credit scores. I increased the balance on my credit card by $21. Equifax went DOWN 18 points, and Experian went UP 12 points. That makes NO sense to me. And over $21?! I ended up just paying $100 on my credit card bill to hopefully counter-act the 18 points Equifax went down, however, I never notice an impact on my score after I pay my monthly bill (and I always pay about 5X the minimum payment). I'm trying to build up my score so that I can go on a home loan with my husband, and now I'm afraid to put ANY money on my credit cards because it'll go WAY down! I'm not even sure which one the lender will use. The Equifax is about 50 points lower than the TransUnion and Experian. 

Any help/answers/comments/etc will be much appreciated. 

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Since you're interested in maximizing your scores for a home loan, my recommendation would be to take out 2 more bank cards, then be sure that each month 2 of them report a zero balance and one reports a balance of 9% or less.

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  this ^

  having one card will throw your score around every time you use/pay.  3 is best for scoring. quality cards as long as you are applying, and mortgage hopefully is 6 months away.