Very confused at TU - 22 of drop for no reason

[Anonymous]

My transunion score has been the only consistent in my credit for over a year.  My score has been in the 780+ range since July 2016.  It didn't even change last month when 4 inquiries fell off.  I just received an alert that it changed so I opened the app.  My score dropped 22 points!  I haven't done anything different in many months.  My utilization is 4%, no new inquiries, no new credit etc.  There is absolutely no reason for this.  I went to credit karma to check my report and nothing has changed on my report - vantage score dropped 16 pts and under changes is blank.

Any ideas of why the random score change happened?

[Anonymous]

Your overall aggregate utilization is 4% but what kind of individual tradeline utilization reported recently?

Utilization affects FICO both ways: if one tradeline's utilization goes up a bunch but aggregate stays the same, FICO will drop.

Did any old old old closed accounts fall off?

Did your only installment loan get paid in full?

No chance that all your revolving tradelines reported $0?

If this is a free TU score from a creditor, remember it's possible you paid all your credit cards to $0 and a few days later let a balance report elsewhere and the creditor may have pulled your score from a week or two ago and it may have crossed that day.

[Anonymous]

I haven't had anything change.  The last payment reported in mid September with no change to my score.  I bought a commercial embroidery machine in April 2016 on an interest free promo. This initially showed as 50%+ of credit line on that account and has dropped to 35.  That has always shown so it isn't new and didn't create the score drop.

My monthly payment for the machine and my house payment report around the same time. It is the only activity on my report.  I had 4 inquiries from 2 years ago while trying to establish credit fall off in September.  My scores didn't even change then.  I even wondered about rebucketing that I hear so much about.  Absolutely nothing has changed to cause this, not even my "spending habits"  I am completely baffled.

[Anonymous]

From what I've been able to tell, rebucketing actually shouldn't drop score (this is based on me reading up on hundreds of anecdotal data points) -- all it seems to do is open up the next maximum FICO score limit you can have within the new bucket.

This might be a good time to spend $1 for the CCT 1 week trial to see for sure what is going on.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My transunion score has been the only consistent in my credit for over a year.  My score has been in the 780+ range since July 2016.  It didn't even change last month when 4 inquiries fell off.  I just received an alert that it changed so I opened the app.  My score dropped 22 points!  I haven't done anything different in many months.  My utilization is 4%, no new inquiries, no new credit etc.  There is absolutely no reason for this.  I went to credit karma to check my report and nothing has changed on my report - vantage score dropped 16 pts and under changes is blank.

Any ideas of why the random score change happened?

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Not enough info here to identify likely cause. Clearly something is different on your TU file since both your Fico 8 and VantageScore 3.0 were impacted. Best guess is # cards reporting balances increased to over 50% from below 30%. Inquiries falling off never drop score but adding new accounts/inquiries can drop score.

Did you by any chance use a card that has been inactive for more than 6 months or close any accounts? Did an old, closed account age off your file which might reduce your AoOA and would drop your AAoA? [Note: Although CK only considers open accounts in calculating AAoA, VS3 uses closed accounts in its AAoA calculations]

[Anonymous]

The OP referenced 4 inquiries falling off (that hit 2 years) and stated that there was no score change as a result.  The reason for this is that inquiries are only scoreable for 1 year even though they're present for 2 years on your reports.  At the time inquires fall off your report at the 2 year mark, it doesn't matter if it's 1 inquiry or 100, there will be no change in your score as a result since those inquiries already stopped impacting score 1 year prior.

[Anonymous]

Today, Equifax dropped 37 points - it was my highest score.  The only things I know of that can cause these types of drops is to carry a zero utilization/balance which isn't my case;  to pay off a loan which isn't my case; or to have a late payment appear which isn't my case..  New collections cause a bigger drop but I don't have anything negactive.  I called Equifax because I am extremely confused.  The rep said she didn't see anything that would cause a score drop and had no answer.  The rep went as far as to say they didn't anything  see any recent changes other than a balance decrease on my mortgage and credit card.  There are no new inquiries and only 1 inquiry from March 2016.  No new accounts, no recently closed accounts, no newly awakened accounts, no balance increases, no utilization increases, absolutely no changes at all over many months other than paying debt down.  

All 3 scores are now within a points of each other and my score is still classified as "very good" - 755 to 762 . I am pretty knowledgeable about how credit works and I check my credit regularly.  This has me beyond confused.  

[Anonymous]

Only thing I could think of is maybe you had one of your old, closed out loan accounts fall off? Not sure what else it could be. That is really strange!

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Today, Equifax dropped 37 points - it was my highest score.  The only things I know of that can cause these types of drops is to carry a zero utilization/balance which isn't my case;  to pay off a loan which isn't my case; or to have a late payment appear which isn't my case..  New collections cause a bigger drop but I don't have anything negactive.  I called Equifax because I am extremely confused.  The rep said she didn't see anything that would cause a score drop and had no answer.  The rep went as far as to say they didn't anything  see any recent changes other than a balance decrease on my mortgage and credit card.  There are no new inquiries and only 1 inquiry from March 2016.  No new accounts, no recently closed accounts, no newly awakened accounts, no balance increases, no utilization increases, absolutely no changes at all over many months other than paying debt down.  

All 3 scores are now within a points of each other and my score is still classified as "very good" - 755 to 762 . I am pretty knowledgeable about how credit works and I check my credit regularly.  This has me beyond confused.  

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Your starting scores from 2014 show as about 600. Was there a negative of some kind back then? What were all the prior negatives on your file, even if they have "fallen off" or aged off already.

With no change in utilization or new accounts, the only possibility is that an old negative is still part of your score. The ~780 score may have been possible even with the negative, but with change of time, moving to a new reference point to an old negative may re-score things.

[Anonymous]

How many total credit cards do you have and how many of them are reporting non-zero balances?

I agree with others above that an old account or accounts may have fallen off of your report which could result in an AAoA (or AoOA) drop.