Why doesn't my fico score go up as quickly as it goes down?

[Anonymous]

I recently paid off all of my credit cards, around $100K and  my score only went up about 50 points. Now everytime I use my gas card it drops 10 or 11 points. To me it seems to be slanted. My score was around 725 when I had $100K worth of CC debt. I pay it all off and it only goes up to 775? I expected to see an 800 plus score. Also I had to dispute to get that. BUT if I go buy gas and I see an instant alert and posting to the credit beaureaus. Let me pay off a $5k cc and I have to write letters to get it to show up. I think the system is biased. Am I wrong in my thinking??

[Anonymous]

Katie, we know way too little about your credit report to judge.

100k is a lot of CC debt, but it isn't a lot to your FICO score if you had 300k in available credit.

When you use a gas card you haven't used in awhile you take a temporary hit for using credit you don't normally use, but the score should correct next month. Another factor that may be penalizing you on the downside is the number of accounts with balances reporting (even if you pay them off before the due date). You need to pay accounts before the statement date to avoid having FICO think you are using too many credit cards. Typically letting 1 or 2 cards report a low balance is best for your FICO score.

Sorry for the general advice, I don't know much about the particulars of your reports. Without a really long history a score of 775 is a great score, much higher than the median and mean. You will not get lower rates with an 800 than you will with a 775.

[Anonymous]

I have 32 years on perfect payment history with 44 accounts and it shows 10 accounts with balances but actually there are only 3 accounts with balances that are broken down to one account with $1800 and the other two accounts are gas cards that are less than $300. All three accounts are paid in full every month. My issue is that I have to work to get the CB's to report when accounts are paid in full. What do I need to do to get my score up? It is amazing that my score can drop 10 points when a gas account reports $200. But if I pay off an account that had $3K it doesn't affect my score. My goal is to get that 800 score. What does it take? Do I need to close some of these accounts? If so, which ones do I close?

[Anonymous]

Are there ANY negatives anywhere on your credit report? Collections? Charge Offs? Public Records?

[Anonymous]

No, nothing, it is clean. I had high debt and now I don't so I want it to go up and it isn't.

[Miner]

When you buy a score frome here (or often even those Fake scores elsewhere) they give you a summary of things that are holding your score down.  What do yours say?

[Anonymous]

10/22/08  TU 797 - EQ 779 - EX 796

2/18/08    TU 712 - EQ 706 - EX 707

The score has gone up. Maybe I need to give it some more time. TU and EX both say I have too many accounts with balances. I had 44 accounts and they report 6 with balances. Two are my mortgage and the other 4 are less than a $1000 total. EQ says that I have a new account opened 2 mos ago. I took that offer to get 15% off. Bad move. Even though I have no balance, it is a new account. Didn't realize at the time that it would hurt my score. Hopefully, in a few months my score will break into the 800's.

[Junejer]

Are those 44 accounts active? How many are active? Try to keep less than half of your active accounts with balances. Additionally, try to pay off some of those revolving accounts before the statement cuts, allowing maybe one of the revolving accounts to report a balance monthly. This may help to get you over the hump.