Walmart FICO score dropped???

Chris679 · ‎03-12-2014

Walmart FICO was 748 on 2/4/14, Discover was 760 on 2/25/14 and then a total punch to the gut. On 3/4/14, Walmart dropped down to 734.

Number one key factor affecting my score is "you have multiple accounts showing missed payments or derogatory descriptions", which I have never seen before. Number two is the old stand by, short account history, which has always been number one before.

I had just paid off all cards but one before the statements in preparation for applying for a new card. This is why I was seeing the increase in score and fully expected the new Walmart to be over 760. I pulled a quick TU credit report (suspecting fraud of course) and everything looks fine. No changes in accounts, no new inquiries and just the $800 balance on one card out of $55k in total credit limits.

Any ideas besides just some type of reporting error that hopefully will be gone the next time the score updates?

Revelate · ‎03-13-2014

That's wierd; if you'd suddenly missed a recent payment FICO '08 would've whacked you harder than what you lost so the data is likely intact.

I don't know, vagaries of +/-10 points I don't reallly worry about especially at your score range; I could take a SWAG but it'd be pretty unfounded without being able to compare a before and after report.

Personally I'd wait and not worry about it, could be a blip, or could be something more intrinsic on how FICO perhaps calculates buckets, or could be something different entirely. It's just hard to tell without a close reading of the report and even then might be throwing darts blindfolded if it's a deep intrinsic thing.

JLK93 · ‎03-14-2014

@Chris679 wrote:
Walmart FICO was 748 on 2/4/14, Discover was 760 on 2/25/14 and then a total punch to the gut. On 3/4/14, Walmart dropped down to 734.

Number one key factor affecting my score is "you have multiple accounts showing missed payments or derogatory descriptions", which I have never seen before. Number two is the old stand by, short account history, which has always been number one before.

I had just paid off all cards but one before the statements in preparation for applying for a new card. This is why I was seeing the increase in score and fully expected the new Walmart to be over 760. I pulled a quick TU credit report (suspecting fraud of course) and everything looks fine. No changes in accounts, no new inquiries and just the $800 balance on one card out of $55k in total credit limits.

Any ideas besides just some type of reporting error that hopefully will be gone the next time the score updates?

What is the credit limit on the card showing an $800 balance. It is possible that the utilization on this card is responsible for the score drop, especially if it is 10% or more. It could also be a case on rebucketing.

Chris679 · ‎03-14-2014

$800 out of $13800. The only changes on the report are that balance dropping from $3500 to $800 and another from $6 to zero. The change on score is surely from the "multiple accounts showing missed payments" I just can't explain that. It was mention correctly before that if there were actually multiple missed payments it would have dropped way more than 14 pts. We'll see when discover posts I guess.