topic Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points?? in General Credit Topics

Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 23:48:55 GMT

So I just got an alert from MyFico (i subscribe to monitoring) and my KingSize store card payment of 18 (out of a balance of 49 now down to 31) just posted...

The credit limit on this card has gone from 250 to 650

and my Equifax score jumped 61 points from 648 to 709

How is this even possible?

My util on that card was never over 20, its 6 ,months old, has never missed a payment, has grown slowly.... and none of the other bureaus has reflected this massive spike when the same card was reported to them earlier this week. (EX went up one point to 652, TU didnt move staying at 657)

Any insights? As much as I love to see a score jump, this seems very peculiar.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 23:58:36 GMT

The score increase you got has nothing to do with the alert you received. A 61 point jump would not come from an $18 payment or a CLI. Something else changed and it sounds like whatever changed only happened on EQ and not TU or EX. I would compare your reports and you should see what changed on EQ that did not change on the other 2 bureaus.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Appleman — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 01:43:02 GMT

A few of the positives that would bump a score is having an account age 6 months (not considered new by some models) and having utilization drop from 20% to below 9% (my guesstimates from your post, that could result in a boost.

If the new score holds for the next few months, probably real.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 01:45:21 GMT

Appleman, while I agree that the 2 events you mentioned would boost a score, I don't believe that either could result in a 61 point gain.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 02:39:09 GMT

Until the 7th when my new 3B comes out I wont know if anything else changed, but according to alerts at least, this is the only change for equifax since Oct 7.

And as far as I am aware nothing else SHOULD have changed besides a few payments posting and some CLs getting soft increases. Im gardening, so there are no new tradelines or anything like that.

Its pretty nuts. I mean a lot of my TLs are passing the six month mark this month, I wonder if thats part of it. Some AAoA benchmark being passed.

Still weird how the alert literally says...

"One of your Retail Card balances changed" And its -18 on one card, which results in a +61 points gain.

So ye, I wont know if anything else has changed drastically for 2 more weeks. Nothing else has changed (none of my vantage scores from other sites moved nor have my TU/EX changed significants, as in EX went up +1, TU did nothing)

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 04:28:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Until the 7th when my new 3B comes out I wont know if anything else changed, but according to alerts at least, this is the only change for equifax since Oct 7.

There are tons of changes that can happen to a credit report that do not result in an alert. For example, someone could have a major delinquency fall off of their report which could result in a 100 point gain, but that wouldn't necessarily trigger an alert. Still, that person's score would go up 100 points.

Again, your alert of "one of your retail card balances has changed" has nothing to do with your point gain. The alert does not say "one of your retail card balances has changed which has raised your score 61 points." From the language that you wrote your above post in, I can still tell that you believe that's the case. I can tell you with 100% certainty that's not possible.

It's crucial that you understand that score changes do not have to do anything with the alerts you receive.

In using my above example of a major delinquency falling off of a credit report and resulting in a 100 point gain (which likely wouldn't cause an alert) let's take a look at how this point gain could be incorrectly figured due to an alert:

1 - 3 days after the major delinquency comes off, a card balance is paid down to $0, resulting in an alert and a new score which is now 100 points higher. The person that receives this alert may wrongly assume that paying a card down to $0 results in a 100 point gain. Obviously, it does not.

2/3/4 - 3 days after the major delinquency comes off, the person applies for a new credit card and receives an alert due to the inquiry. They incorrectly think that the inquiry resulted in a major point gain. Again, an impossibility. The person could receive a CLI, resulting in an alert, then they think that their new greater credit limit caused their score to jump up. Finally, a new account that was opened a month prior could report to the bureaus and cause an alert due to the new tradeline appearing. Surely that wouldn't result in a 100 point gain, but someone could wrongly assume that if they think the alert and the score change are directly related.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 04:58:52 GMT

Hello TCG. You mention that you won't be able to tell if your reports have changed until your next 3B comes out. Since the myFICO Ultimate product only releases a report every 90 days, you might want to sign up for some tools that will get you access to your reports more often than that.

Karma, for example, is free and gives you your TU and EQ as often as once a week. There are a number of other free or almost free tools as well.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:47:23 GMT

I recommend WalletHub, as you can get daily TU reports from them for free. It's nice to be able to check your report daily, especially if you're expecting something to change any day.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 14:05:31 GMT

Since the anomaly is on Equifax, id kinda need to check on that. My next EQ for credit karma is tomorrow, even though CK can be really wonky, thats what im aiming for next.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:09:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Since the anomaly is on Equifax, id kinda need to check on that. My next EQ for credit karma is tomorrow, even though CK can be really wonky, thats what im aiming for next.

Sounds like a plan. Definitely check that CK update on EQ and see if something has changed. Another thing you can do for $1 is purchase a trial membership from Credit Check Total. Along with your 3B reports, you'll also get your 3 FICO 08 scores.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 07:44:42 GMT

Okay so my CK just pulled and according to this, my last old derog I had been fighting for six months (which was reinvestigated twice and both times remained) just dropped off the report.

Reason for dispute - the account that originated this derog was PIF and cancelled in May 2012 (cell phone ATT plan) and after that they nailed me for a 300 dollar early termination fee (which was bogus, as it had been 24 months, which should have fulfilled the terms of the original contract) reporting as late and later derog from the date of cancellation. They also added another 150 in "collections fees" on top of that, bringing the total balance to approx 480 dollars with tax. Lol tax on a whimsical fee. Fast forward to 2017 when I buy a car back in February, and I find out this has all happened when the dealership pulls my credit. I never even got notified so five years later I find out my report has had this sitting on it. So for the last six months I did all I could with the OC and later the collections agency explaining this, and even after dispute, reinv and the like, they basically threw me under the bus, so I just chose the F-U route and was letting it age off. I refused to pay this on the principle of them trying to shoehorn me into a fee I legally should not be required to pay.

Anyway.

It did NOT drop off TU. So that explains the anomaly up front.

What bothers me, is this should not have dropped off at all, it had about 18 months to go before reaching the seven year since DOFD date, and it was no longer in dispute.

The collection agency did report it as still active to TU on October 22, which coincides with the date of the alert on EQ.

This just gets stranger and stranger.

Update, just checked Experian, new report generated as of 10/26 - its still there too. Why it dropped off EQ and not EX/TU is beyond me.

Re: Baffling Alert I just got, an 18 dollar payment resulting in EQ score jumping 61 points??

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 15:44:52 GMT

Well, I'm glad you sort of figured this one out. Above is proof that a 5.5 year old major can hold back scores significantly.