@Anonymous wrote:I reported loss of points due to zero balances last month.
This month I let two balances report for 1% utilization
and I got all my points back.
So evidently paying your bills off is a no no.
You knew already last month what you know now. 
I had a month with lots of things happening and wound up with four cards (out of 10, I think) with balances. So I've been semi-patiently waiting as each account posted $0 once again.
The following scores are from Equifax:
2 cards with balances: 779
1 card with a balance: 781 <-- Yippee! but this lasted about 5 minutes, until the other one updated
0 cards with balances: 769, a 12-point drop
It's pretty obvious where my sweet spot is with Equifax.
As for TransUnion:
2 cards with balances: 783
1 card with a balance: 788
0 cards with balances: 793, a 5-point increase
So I'll never be able to make both of them happy.
@haulingthescoreup wrote:
So I'll never be able to make both of them happy.
But mostly happy though. 
It's simpler for DW and me. For both of us, the EQ and TU are very close at the $0 baseline, while the TU is higher otherwise.
Yesterday, we received myFICO SWs for returning from no cards to one card. Gained exactly the same as we lost earlier.
My EQ is the only one of the four that's generally not in the 800s these months. I'm counting on 4 events soon to take place to do the trick: 1) a credit card will be one year old, 2) an AU card to do the same, 3) an inquiry will be outside its one year window, 4) another inquiry to do the same.
@Anonymous-own-fico wrote:Yesterday, we received myFICO SWs for returning from no cards to one card. Gained exactly the same as we lost earlier.
Those EQ recoups were 0 points for me and 7 points for DW.
The other day, we got the points back from TU. I had lost 22 points, which were returned. DW had lost 17 points, but regained 22 points just as I did. I have no clue where those extra 5 points came from other than maybe aging, but she broke her record, so that's fine.
paying off your bill is not good same thing happen to me lost point due to i hit 0. my dell account post 80 dollar bal that my eq when up by 1 point 
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@haulingthescoreup wrote:I had a month with lots of things happening and wound up with four cards (out of 10, I think) with balances. So I've been semi-patiently waiting as each account posted $0 once again.
The following scores are from Equifax:
2 cards with balances: 779
1 card with a balance: 781 <-- Yippee! but this lasted about 5 minutes, until the other one updated
0 cards with balances: 769, a 12-point drop
It's pretty obvious where my sweet spot is with Equifax.
As for TransUnion:
2 cards with balances: 783
1 card with a balance: 788
0 cards with balances: 793, a 5-point increase
So I'll never be able to make both of them happy.
Post Amex I can't test the 0 cards with a balance but for all the work it seems easiest and not too harmful to let 2 cards report with a balance. Might as well take advantage of the short term loan.
I'm going to hope that as usual, EQ updates a day or two ahead of TU. I'm letting one account report $50 and update on EQ (but not TU), and then pull an EQ score.
Then I'll stop pulling scores for a long, long time!
And yes, I know it's ridiculous, but hey, there are a lot worse vices out there.