topic Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop. in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 20:59:15 GMT

Can some one try and explain the mysteries of FICO's crazy algorythms to me. Equifax dropped me suddenly a massive 29 points from a 738 to a 708 following a small balance decrease of $90 on one of my cards. Credit limit is $5,500 .Balance on card is $710. Previous balance was $900. Pulled right away my 3 bureau report. No lates ever, no missed ever, no derogatories ever, no closed accounts, no credit applications since Aug.2016, no sudden large charges. Credit utilisation on my 6 cards 16% of available $93,000. Monthly balances lowering on all cards. Equifax score gradually raising monthly 2 to 3 points ( like TU and EX ). Then SUDDENLY this massive drop. Can't understand. Help

EQ 708, TU 749, EX 748

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 21:27:04 GMT

Three questions:

(1) What tools are you using to get your scores? (Credit Karma, myFICO, Credit Check Total, etc.)

(2) Did you receive an "alert" showing the credit card balance decrease along with the score drop?

(3) You mention that the CC balance was $900, that it is now $710, and that it decreased $90. Are you sure you don't mean a decrease of $190?

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

SouthJamaica — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 22:36:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Can some one try and explain the mysteries of FICO's crazy algorythms to me. Equifax dropped me suddenly a massive 29 points from a 738 to a 708 following a small balance decrease of $90 on one of my cards. Credit limit is $5,500 .Balance on card is $710. Previous balance was $900. Pulled right away my 3 bureau report. No lates ever, no missed ever, no derogatories ever, no closed accounts, no credit applications since Aug.2016, no sudden large charges. Credit utilisation on my 6 cards 16% of available $93,000. Monthly balances lowering on all cards. Equifax score gradually raising monthly 2 to 3 points ( like TU and EX ). Then SUDDENLY this massive drop. Can't understand. Help
EQ 708, TU 749, EX 748

1. Your $190 balance decrease is unrelated to the score drop.

2. You need to compare your new EQ report to your previous report to see what might have triggered the score drop.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 22:59:24 GMT

1- using My Fico

2- Yes. Alerts with every balance change reported on each card monthly.

Any ideas as to why after 9 months of consistently paying down cards , even though using cards on a monthly rotational basis ( no major single charge over $700), just to show usage, Equifax suddenly went crazy and dinged me 29 points?

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 23:02:46 GMT

I did compare previous report with just pulled report after 29 point drop. Absolutely nothing different from prvious months except for gradual pay down of card balances. Credit utilisation went from 19% previous months to 16% just pulled report after point drop. Baffeled.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 23:08:54 GMT

Oops, sorry ,forgot to answer your question #3. The accurate answer is: April- balance was $910, May $810, June ( just reported and which seemed to trigger drop ) $710

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 01:33:37 GMT

Something else definitely changed that you aren't seeing. The reason you may not be seeing it could be that it's only visible on your real hard copy credit report, not on the myFICO generated version. You said your EQ score dropped. Did your EX and TU scores drop also? If not, chances are whatever changed only changed on your EQ report so I would request that one from them right away and start looking at that report relative to the other 2 to identify what the difference is.

The balances changes have nothing to do with your score drop. Balance reductions cannot adversely impact score, with the only exception being if you reported ALL zero balances across ALL revolving accounts. Since you still have reported balances, it's not possible that a score drop would come from paying them down.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 03:02:46 GMT

No, my TU and EX did not change a single point down. Just the 29 points down on EQ. I will def get a full report from EQ on Monday morning and advice you. Thanks for your input on this mystery of mysteries to me. I always found EQ to be the " toughest " of the 3 agencies in scoring always lower than the other 2, even with all things being equal on the credit reports. Has anyone also noticed this as well?

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 03:52:01 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
No, my TU and EX did not change a single point down. Just the 29 points down on EQ. I will def get a full report from EQ on Monday morning and advice you. Thanks for your input on this mystery of mysteries to me. I always found EQ to be the " toughest " of the 3 agencies in scoring always lower than the other 2, even with all things being equal on the credit reports. Has anyone also noticed this as well?

Well, almost by definition, about 1/3 of the population would agree with you on this. Conversely, around 2/3 probably disagrees. Our opinions on certain bureaus being "tougher" are based on what we personally experience. For me, I've experienced the exact opposite of you where my EQ score has generally been my highest when all profile data is identical. For the next guy, no doubt it's TU.

Definitely report back once you have a chance to compare your credit reports. Slightly off topic here, but do you have any open installment loans?

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 04:07:15 GMT

yes. 2 personal loans of $5k and$7k both over a 36 mo. term. Taken out back in Aug 2016 . Always paid on time. Only had a 3 point ding on EQ and 2 point ding on TU , none on EX. Also 1 auto loan taken out in July 2014 over 60 moonths. Never late.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 05:29:23 GMT

Just pulled a complete hard copy of my EQ report on line from EQ website, as you suggested. Absolutely nothing erroneous or different on this report ( July) that was different from June's report except for the natural lower balances on cards as I pay down balances. So the sudden EQ 29 point drop still remains an unexplained mystery. Any ideas why ?

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

medicgrrl — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 12:25:08 GMT

Have you looked at each account individually to see if there are any comments? My sister has one report that has a lower score because there is a derogatory comment, even though the payment history is showing no lates.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

medicgrrl — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 12:26:20 GMT

Also, look more precisely at the accounts that just updated.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

SouthJamaica — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 12:47:12 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Just pulled a complete hard copy of my EQ report on line from EQ website, as you suggested. Absolutely nothing erroneous or different on this report ( July) that was different from June's report except for the natural lower balances on cards as I pay down balances. So the sudden EQ 29 point drop still remains an unexplained mystery. Any ideas why ?

Is it possible that some older account(s) aged off? I had the experience with Equifax that it dropped some of my older closed accounts, thus decreasing my (a) age of oldest account and (b) average age of accounts, even though they'd been closed only a year or less than a year.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 13:50:23 GMT

Yes. Checked each account fully on full report. No derogatories. Only one item in the comments box. I disputed something over a year ago. It was resolved satisfactorily. But still shows "cardholder disputes information on account", month after month for over a year now. However it has never lowered my score. So I doubt it is that all of a sudden that caused a 29 point drop..

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 13:52:58 GMT

Nope, nothing dropped off from previous reports. Still showing same accounts from month after month.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

atarvuzdar — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 18:07:13 GMT

Barring any obvious changes I would look to rebucketing as the possible culprit. Your AAoA may have passed a threshold where you're now in an "older" crowd--but you're the low man on the totem pole in that crowd. If not AAoA it could be another criterion which passively changed that caused the rebucketing. Something similar happened to me a couple years ago. My oldest account crossed a threshold and suddenly my peers (as FICO sees it) were a different group of people with different data points.

ETA: I only figured this out because one of my positive indicators (age of accounts is high) moved to being a negative indicator (age of accounts too low).

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 20:39:14 GMT

@atarvuzdar wrote:
Barring any obvious changes I would look to rebucketing as the possible culprit. Your AAoA may have passed a threshold where you're now in an "older" crowd--but you're the low man on the totem pole in that crowd. If not AAoA it could be another criterion which passively changed that caused the rebucketing. Something similar happened to me a couple years ago. My oldest account crossed a threshold and suddenly my peers (as FICO sees it) were a different group of people with different data points.

ETA: I only figured this out because one of my positive indicators (age of accounts is high) moved to being a negative indicator (age of accounts too low).

Rebucketing is a possibility, though if that is what is going on it won't be the OP's AAoA that triggered it. Aside from derogs (which can get you into or take you out of a dirty profile) the three factors involved in scorecard assignment are:

Age of Oldest Account

Age of Youngest Account

Total number of accounts

So if you want to explore your rebucketing theory with the OP it would be valuable to find out whether his Age of Oldest Account crossed over an integer value, whether his Age of Youngest crossed over a 6-month, 1-year or 2-year mark, and whether derogs have changed.

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 01:50:51 GMT

Excellent. Really good input.Thank you. I feel like we are now beginning to get into the upper echelons of the dark side of Mr. Fair and Mr. Isaac ' s creation when they started FICO all those years ago. Bless their little hearts...lol. So many ulcers they have given the average American consumer since FICO started!

Re: Equifax balance decrease and a direct massive 29 point Fico drop.

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 03:04:19 GMT

Also did you check to see if some negative information has an updated date, that can cause a score drop.