Why did I lose 4 points (address change or account combination)?

[masscredit]

It's nothing major but I'm trying to figure out why I lost 4 points. I recevied two alerts.  One is an address change. That showed my EQ08 score losing 4 points. I also received an alert that showed one of my Cap 1 accounts being closed (account combination). That showed the same 4 point loss. I don't see anything else that would have triggered this change so it seems like it was one of these. 

[Anonymous]

Address changes don't impact score.

As I'm sure you know, alerts are often not the reason for a score change.

Just because you didn't see something else change doesn't mean that something else didn't change.  There are many constantly moving parts.

Did your overall credit limits drop when you closed the account?  Perhaps your number of accounts with a balance reported as a percentage increased with the elimination of the account.  For example, if you had 2 of 5 accounts (40%) with reported balances and closed one, you now went to 2 of 4 accounts (50%) with reported balances which could constitute a drop of a few points.

[masscredit]

Actually, that might be it. My overall credit limits stayed the same but I lost one account. I let a few accounts report a balance this month so losing one account while letting a few report a balance gave me a higher percentage of accounts reporting. 

[Anonymous]

That would make sense.  Do you know the number of accounts you had balances reported on vs number of total accounts?  If so, what percentage did you move from and to using my example above?

[masscredit]

I have had 10 cards before combining a $10K and a $13K. 6 of 10 were reporting balances -

Barclay $4298 / $10.5K 41%

Cap 1 $4978 / $15K 33%

Merrick - $111 / $2200 6%

JCP - $14 / $10K < 1%

Lowes $1772 / $17K 10%

Walmart $71 / $15K < 1%

$11,244.00

Total utilization is 10% 

I was doing pretty good until the 6th card (Merrick) reported $111.00 June 1st. I lost 3 points for that. The other 4 points were lost when Cap 1 reported on the 10th. So that made it 6/9 instad of 6/10. JCP, Walmart and Lowes are already paid off so they won't be reporting balances next week. I should get some points back from that. Merrick will be at $0 when it reports the end of the month. Only fresh charges will be on Barclay but it will still be around $4K. 

[Anonymous]

Also keep in mind that if your aggregate utilization is at 10%, you are literally 1% away from crossing the threshold into the "ideal" aggregate utilization range.  It wouldn't take much of a payment to get you to 8.99% or less, which would result in a score increase.  If you have 9 cards now, you'll want to get it so that 4 of them (or less) are reporting a balance so that you're under 50% of your cards.  The easiest thing to do here would be to get your Walmart and JCP cards to report $0, which would cost you next to nothing since those balances are very low and then pay down any of your other cards (highest interest first is usually smart) a bit more to force an aggregate threshold cross to below 9%.  I would think the combination of crossing to single-digit utilization AND less than 50% of cards reporting balances would result in a pretty solid, perhaps 10-15 point gain.

Also, your Cap One card is sitting at about 32-33% utilization.  Getting that to 28.99% utilization or less would help a few points too.

[Anonymous]

To add to what BBS said, when you calculate your payoffs to 8.99% or 28.99%, make sure to include new interest charged at statement.  So pay down to 28.99% minus whatever interest will be charged so you might actually need to pay down to 28% or 27% so once interest posts at statement cut, you're still below 9% or 29%.

[SouthJamaica]

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@masscredit wrote:

It's nothing major but I'm trying to figure out why I lost 4 points. I recevied two alerts.  One is an address change. That showed my EQ08 score losing 4 points. I also received an alert that showed one of my Cap 1 accounts being closed (account combination). That showed the same 4 point loss. I don't see anything else that would have triggered this change so it seems like it was one of these. 

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1. I don't consider a 4 point change a statistically meaningful change; it could be anything.

2. Your alerts usually have nothing to do with your score change.

3. An address change wouldn't lower or raise your score.

[masscredit]

I paid off my JCP, Walmart and Lowes cards so they will report $0.00 next week. Will also pay off Merrick before the statement closes at the end of the month.  My EQ08 score has been 743. That's with 1-2 cards reporting a total of less than $2000.00 (usually one just under $1K). The 9 point loss isn't to bad for all of these cards reporting. I just checked my TU08, it's STILL at 745 (updated a few days ago). That one is bulletproof! I get my EX score through Discover. I'm going to hold off on checking that score.  I want to see what it is after my tax liens possibly aren't counted on July 1st.