topic Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:29:57 GMT

Got an alert from Experian telling me that my utilization went from 85% to 78% on a card, but my Fico 8 dropped 20 points. This is the only change I am seeing from Experian. This concerns me as I was assuming my score would either remain unchanged, or go up a few points. I recently received a CLI on this account, and the current utilization is at 30%, but the CLI has not been reported yet.

Would anyone please share their thoughts on this?

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:45:50 GMT

Something else changed.

The alert you received is not at all related to your score drop. Movement from 85% utilization to 78% utilization would not result in any score change, as the movement was between two threshold points (68.9%, 88.9%) and did not cross either.

You mentioned the individual utilization on 2 different cards, but what about your aggregate utilization?

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 16:50:46 GMT

My current reported aggregate utilization across all cards is 37%. Next reporting cycle should drop that down to around 23%

I have been paying down my credit card balances, and have also received a credit line increase on two accounts. Maybe I just need to disregard this score change for now and wait until my reports show my updated information?

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 20:11:02 GMT

I figured out what happened. I had a charged off account that was settled from two years ago. Experian was still updating monthly with an incorrect balance. I disputed the account, the balance was corrected, but it looks like they noted in my accoutn that I failed to make a payment in October. This account has been paid for over two years...

Guess it's back to the dispute center.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:27:36 GMT

Crossing the 28.9% threshold on aggregate utilization will probably yield you around 15 FICO points, give or take.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Fire6546 — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 15:47:01 GMT

I went from 30%util across the board to 2% and my fico9’s took a big dump after I paid several cards to zero balance , fico8 stayed the same

Edit to add...vantage scores took a big hit same as fico9 about 54 points after paying all but one card off

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

kilroy8 — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 16:10:14 GMT

@Fire6546 wrote:
I went from 30%util across the board to 2% and my fico9’s took a big dump after I paid several cards to zero balance , fico8 stayed the same

Edit to add...vantage scores took a big hit same as fico9 about 54 points after paying all but one card off

I don't think so. Fico 8 would surely have increased, unsure about Fico 9. Something else is going on, or your score wasn't rescored after the decrease in util or something.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Fire6546 — Sat, 10 Nov 2018 18:14:47 GMT

even when I use the simulators and simulate what happens when I pay off my balances, it tells me hmm thats not normal usually scores go up but yours appears to go down and infact they do just that

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 05:18:27 GMT

even when I use the simulators and simulate what happens when I pay off my balances, it tells me hmm thats not normal usually scores go up but yours appears to go down and infact they do just that

Simulators are garbage and can never be trusted.

FICO scores don't go down from paying off balances, so long as you still have at least one reported balance. If you went from 30% aggregate utilization to 2% aggregate utilization your scores would not have dropped. If you are seeing a score drop, it was from another event completely.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Fire6546 — Sun, 11 Nov 2018 12:10:24 GMT

Ok, so I got scores refreshed this morning and my fico8 did in fact go up 38 points from October after paying down to zero many of my accounts, however my vantage 3.0 did go down 54 points and my vantage scores have seemed to do that last couple months if if I pay a card off and not carry a balance

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 03:42:11 GMT

Ok, so I got scores refreshed this morning and my fico8 did in fact go up 38 points from October after paying down to zero many of my accounts, however my vantage 3.0 did go down 54 points and my vantage scores have seemed to do that last couple months if if I pay a card off and not carry a balance

That's fine and a good thing. If your FICO scores are up 38 points, that's a great win, as it's a meaningful score that lenders use. They will not use your VS 3.0's, thus making them unmeaningful scores. Gaining 2-3 FICO points is > losing 200-300 VS 3.0 points.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

RonM21 — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 16:24:05 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That's fine and a good thing. If your FICO scores are up 38 points, that's a great win, as it's a meaningful score that lenders use. They will not use your VS 3.0's, thus making them unmeaningful scores. Gaining 2-3 FICO points is > losing 200-300 VS 3.0 points.
Lol, this is so true. But there are still a lot of people out there who put the same staock in their Vantage scores as Fico's. A good bit of the time it seems to be from lack of knowledge though. In my experience, my Vantage scores have never been very close to my Fico's, and most of the time they are way off, let alone close.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:23:30 GMT

It definitely varies from person to person. I've seen people with FICO scores 100+ points higher than their VS 3.0's, where others have reported VS 3.0's 100+ points higher than their FICO scores. There are also different events that can cause a FICO score to go up, but a VS 3.0 score to go down and vice versa. I always feel it's a best practice to not try and compare them and under most circumstances ignore the VS 3.0's all together.

Re: Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

Fire6546 — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 00:43:39 GMT

Its not just my VS3 scores its my fico9 scores as well, they follow the same pattern it seems