Why Have My Scores Dropped & Why Do They Differ?

[was_a_guru]

We use two credit monitoring services – Life Lock and Identity Guard. Both of them supply your FICO scores, BUT those scores differ by about 5-8% between the two. Why?

Additionally since I last checked (about 3 months ago) our scores have dropped by 5%. But I have no idea why. We have three credit cards, only use two of them and pay them off every month. We have never carried a balance and have never made a late payment. We sold our house (not a short sale) six months ago and moved into a condo that we own and is paid off.  So with the exception of the credit cards we have NO debt. So why have our scores dropped from the 800 range to the 760 range?

Identity Guard has a feature where you can try different scenarios to see how it affects your score. I tried eliminating the current credit card debt (all of $3,400) and the result was that one of my scores (Experian) went up by 35 points, one (Equifax) went down by 11 points, and Transunion stayed the same. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Can someone please help me understand how these things work?

[guiness56]

Neither Lifelock nor Identity Guard provide a FICO score. 

Even if they were FICO scores, there are so many different versions and models it would be common for them to differ.  Each CRA puts different weights on how things are scored.

I would suggest not letting all of your CC report 0 balances.  FICO will ding you for that, likewise, if you carry a balance on all of them they will ding you.  Let all but one report 0 balances and the last one at 9% or below.

[user5387]

There are lots of factors that affect your scores on a daily business.

For example, if you let a balance report, and then pay it off before the due date, that's different than paying the balance before the statement date.  This sort of issue drives utilization, which in turn is a big score component.

Another example is an old closed account dropping off, which will typically drop your AAoA.