topic Unexplained FICO Score Drop in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:19:09 GMT

I had slowly worked my score up over 750. No late payments or anything bad. I always look at my free credit reports to make sure there is no illegal stuff going on too. My score would be higher, but my utilization got a bit up there at one time; it's down to 25% now. Lately, I've been killing it at work and I've been paying my CC's down religiously (but keeping the accounts open). Two weeks ago, I paid $1,000 on my Capital One Visa....and my FICO dropped 35 points on the next update. This makes no sense to me. I even used their online credit score estimator to see what would happen if I charged $1000, and the estimated score went right back up 35 points. Anyone know why the heck this is happening? I want to refi my mortgage soon, and this throws a wrench into that plan.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

dragontears — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:30:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I had slowly worked my score up over 750. No late payments or anything bad. I always look at my free credit reports to make sure there is no illegal stuff going on too. My score would be higher, but my utilization got a bit up there at one time; it's down to 25% now. Lately, I've been killing it at work and I've been paying my CC's down religiously (but keeping the accounts open). Two weeks ago, I paid $1,000 on my Capital One Visa....and my FICO dropped 35 points on the next update. This makes no sense to me. I even used their online credit score estimator to see what would happen if I charged $1000, and the estimated score went right back up 35 points. Anyone know why the heck this is happening? I want to refi my mortgage soon, and this throws a wrench into that plan.

Are all of your cards reporting a $0 balance?

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 15:51:44 GMT

Most. I am down to the last couple. I keep them all open with occasional small purchases.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

FireMedic1 — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 20:34:02 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I had slowly worked my score up over 750. No late payments or anything bad. I always look at my free credit reports to make sure there is no illegal stuff going on too. My score would be higher, but my utilization got a bit up there at one time; it's down to 25% now. Lately, I've been killing it at work and I've been paying my CC's down religiously (but keeping the accounts open). Two weeks ago, I paid $1,000 on my Capital One Visa....and my FICO dropped 35 points on the next update. This makes no sense to me. I even used their online credit score estimator to see what would happen if I charged $1000, and the estimated score went right back up 35 points. Anyone know why the heck this is happening? I want to refi my mortgage soon, and this throws a wrench into that plan.

Welcome @Anonymous

Please never go by simulators. They are for entertainment. And 99.9% inaccurate. Dont know what you mean by keeping the accounts open. You dont have to use a card every month to keep it open. Once every 6 months is fine. Getting your aggregate or overall util % down below 8% and then less than 50% of your cards reporting and if you want to go all out. Only have 1 card report less than 8% or AZEO as we say here.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 20:45:21 GMT

I use the cards whenever they threaten to close the accounts for inactivity. Seems to be about once a year. Most of my balances are zero. I have a couple that are getting close to paid off now. The 750 to 715 drop was real. I only looked at a simulator just out of curiosity because paying a card from 4,000 down to 3,000 shouldn't cause a drop in score.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

FireMedic1 — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:58:05 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I use the cards whenever they threaten to close the accounts for inactivity. Seems to be about once a year. Most of my balances are zero. I have a couple that are getting close to paid off now. The 750 to 715 drop was real. I only looked at a simulator just out of curiosity because paying a card from 4,000 down to 3,000 shouldn't cause a drop in score.

Ah ok. That explains it. Yeah thats about right on the 1 yr thing. Paying down shouldnt have caused the drop. Theres something hiding that caused that. You can pull your free annual credit reports and take a peek and see whats up. Good luck on your paydown venture.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

CreditPacMan — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 07:15:45 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I use the cards whenever they threaten to close the accounts for inactivity. Seems to be about once a year. Most of my balances are zero. I have a couple that are getting close to paid off now. The 750 to 715 drop was real. I only looked at a simulator just out of curiosity because paying a card from 4,000 down to 3,000 shouldn't cause a drop in score.

When I sold my car and it was later paid off, my score dropped 45 points. My guess is that if your overall utilization goes below 8% you score will drop before going back up. I would keep a few cards with balances below 10% for an overall utilization below 8%-10%.

Just curious, why do you care about the score being exactly 750?

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

FireMedic1 — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 09:05:09 GMT

@CreditPacMan wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I use the cards whenever they threaten to close the accounts for inactivity. Seems to be about once a year. Most of my balances are zero. I have a couple that are getting close to paid off now. The 750 to 715 drop was real. I only looked at a simulator just out of curiosity because paying a card from 4,000 down to 3,000 shouldn't cause a drop in score.
When I sold my car and it was later paid off, my score dropped 45 points. My guess is that if your overall utilization goes below 8% you score will drop before going back up. I would keep a few cards with balances below 10% for an overall utilization below 8%-10%.
Just curious, why do you care about the score being exactly 750?

Not really accurate. You score dropped that much because it probably was you had no other loans after payoff and fell out of the credit mix of cards and loan. Scores go up under 8% not down. 10% is not ideal. Its the next threshold with cards above 8.99%. Also its best to stay under 50% and lower of total cards reporting a balance.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

SouthJamaica — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 13:32:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I had slowly worked my score up over 750. No late payments or anything bad. I always look at my free credit reports to make sure there is no illegal stuff going on too. My score would be higher, but my utilization got a bit up there at one time; it's down to 25% now. Lately, I've been killing it at work and I've been paying my CC's down religiously (but keeping the accounts open). Two weeks ago, I paid $1,000 on my Capital One Visa....and my FICO dropped 35 points on the next update. This makes no sense to me. I even used their online credit score estimator to see what would happen if I charged $1000, and the estimated score went right back up 35 points. Anyone know why the heck this is happening? I want to refi my mortgage soon, and this throws a wrench into that plan.

1. Which score are you talking about?

2. When you paid the Capital One Visa, did all your cards report zero balances?

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:17:41 GMT

It's not that I "care". My score just happened to be exactly 750 at that moment. When I paid more off, I was hoping it would go up even more. Wrong heh.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:20:48 GMT

Not all. I still have balances on four cards. Do you think it could be that I paid off the smallest balances first, leaving only cards with over 30% utilization on? Is that really on a card to card basis, and not aggregate?

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

FireMedic1 — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 17:12:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Not all. I still have balances on four cards. Do you think it could be that I paid off the smallest balances first, leaving only cards with over 30% utilization on? Is that really on a card to card basis, and not aggregate?

@Anonymous If you were answering @SouthJamaica . Hit reply and in the top right it has the quote button. Then type under the quoted post. You can direct your responce to anyone by typing the "@" key and a list will drop down of who has posted in the thread. So he'll see this.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 17:21:05 GMT

@Anonymous If you were answering @SouthJamaica . Hit reply and in the top right it has the quote button. Then type under the quoted post. You can direct your responce to anyone by typing the "@" key and a list will drop down of who has posted in the thread. So he'll see this.

Oh, okay. I see now. Thanks.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

SouthJamaica — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 18:26:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Not all. I still have balances on four cards. Do you think it could be that I paid off the smallest balances first, leaving only cards with over 30% utilization on? Is that really on a card to card basis, and not aggregate?

1. You didn't answer my first question, to what score are you referring.

2. Merely paying a revolving balance down would never cause any FICO score to drop, so you are barking up the wrong tree.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 20:27:22 GMT

@SouthJamaica wrote:
1. You didn't answer my first question, to what score are you referring.

2. Merely paying a revolving balance down would never cause any FICO score to drop, so you are barking up the wrong tree.

It's Vantage Score 3.0. I just pulled my credit rerport. I have zero negative information. Available credit has not decreased. No new inquiries. No new accounts. All balances have decreased. Utilization has decreased.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

CorySoccer — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 20:33:56 GMT

@Anonymous I just made a very similar post to yours, but I'm sort of in the same boat as you. My credit scores suddenly decreased without warning and I have no idea why. Like you, my scores have been around the 750, no negatives, low/zero balances on pretty much everything and my TU dropped 19 and my EQ dropped 59 pts. I pulled my report from annualcreditreport dot com and like I suspected, nothing has changed. Maybe it's some kind of glitch? Idk...if you find out an answer, let me know!

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Jnbmom — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 20:38:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
1. You didn't answer my first question, to what score are you referring.

2. Merely paying a revolving balance down would never cause any FICO score to drop, so you are barking up the wrong tree.
It's Vantage Score 3.0. I just pulled my credit rerport. I have zero negative information. Available credit has not decreased. No new inquiries. No new accounts. All balances have decreased. Utilization has decreased.

Well it's vantage that explains . Their scoring system is not FICO so don't pay much mind to them . Just worry about your FICO scores

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 21:11:11 GMT

@Jnbmom wrote:
Well it's vantage that explains . Their scoring system is not FICO so don't pay much mind to them . Just worry about your FICO scores

Ooops, sorry to say I really didn't know there was much of a difference. Honestly, I haven't relaly been too cognizant of my credit scores for a long, long time. But since I am hoping to refi my house, it just came up recently. Okay, I'll focus on my FICO.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

SouthJamaica — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 22:07:42 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
1. You didn't answer my first question, to what score are you referring.

2. Merely paying a revolving balance down would never cause any FICO score to drop, so you are barking up the wrong tree.
It's Vantage Score 3.0. I just pulled my credit rerport. I have zero negative information. Available credit has not decreased. No new inquiries. No new accounts. All balances have decreased. Utilization has decreased.

Vantage scores are not FICO scores.

Re: Unexplained FICO Score Drop

CorySoccer — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 22:32:28 GMT

@SouthJamaica What is your obsession with being "that" guy in the comment section? Your comment literally adds ZERO to the conversation. If the person thought Fico and Vantage 3.0 were the same scoring models they wouldn't have said "Vantage 3.0" when you asked what scores he was referring to.