Friends: Conventional wisdom holds that large numbers of inquiries and high balances result in declines in EX, EQ, and TU scores. The more inquiries (hard pulls) and higher your balances, generally the lower your scores will be. And vice versa...
However, in reality this doesn't always seem to hold true. For example, I've found that inquiries sometimes have no effect on my score. Paying down a balance actually may result in a lower score. And an increased balance sometimes coincides with an increase in my scores. It's confusing and doesn't seem to follow any pattern.
For example, on June 13th my EX score decreased by 14 points due to a one dollar decrease in the balance on one of my cards. Utilization on that card remained at <1 percent. Again on June 20th, my EX score dropped another 9 points due to a $61 dollar decrease in the balance on another card. Utilization on that card went from 42% to 41%. Likewise, on July 1st my EQ score increased by 5 points due to a $758 increase in the balance on a credit card. On July 2nd, a HP on EX resulted in no change to my score, despite the fact that it was my 12th inquiry on record.
**bleep** is going on here?! I'm curious whether others have experienced the same pattern or lack thereof? Of course, I realize credit scores fluctuate all the time and it's sometimes difficult to assign a specific reason to a particular change. But I've always thought fewer inquiries and low utilization generally were good for my scores. Now I'm not so sure...
Thanks in advance for clearing up my confusion!
The triggers can be confusing to some. I've also experiemced the fluctuations, but the whole report has to be considered at times because other things can factor in.
For me, no matter how confusing it can be, the thing that always holds true is, as long as I'm making positive moves for a period of time, no matter the fluctuation, the score ends up trending upward, and the same in.reverse for the opposite.
For me, no matter how confusing it can be, the thing that always holds true is, as long as I'm making positive moves for a period of time, no matter the fluctuation, the score ends up trending upward, and the same in.reverse for the opposite.
@Meanmchine wrote:Whats reeally fun is when your EQ score goes up 11 points and on the same day your EX score drops 3 points.
Haha! Yep, been there and done that. Sometimes their scoring algorithms seem to defy logic. Here in California, many CC companies and other businesses pull EX, so that bureau always seems to report more inquiries and lower scores than the others. I'll bet most people have no idea that which scores are pulled is related to where they live...
@ridgebackpilot wrote:Friends: Conventional wisdom holds that large numbers of inquiries and high balances result in declines in EX, EQ, and TU scores. The more inquiries (hard pulls) and higher your balances, generally the lower your scores will be. And vice versa...
However, in reality this doesn't always seem to hold true. For example, I've found that inquiries sometimes have no effect on my score. Paying down a balance actually may result in a lower score. And an increased balance sometimes coincides with an increase in my scores. It's confusing and doesn't seem to follow any pattern.
For example, on June 13th my EX score decreased by 14 points due to a one dollar decrease in the balance on one of my cards. Utilization on that card remained at <1 percent. Again on June 20th, my EX score dropped another 9 points due to a $61 dollar decrease in the balance on another card. Utilization on that card went from 42% to 41%. Likewise, on July 1st my EQ score increased by 5 points due to a $758 increase in the balance on a credit card. On July 2nd, a HP on EX resulted in no change to my score, despite the fact that it was my 12th inquiry on record.
**bleep** is going on here?! I'm curious whether others have experienced the same pattern or lack thereof? Of course, I realize credit scores fluctuate all the time and it's sometimes difficult to assign a specific reason to a particular change. But I've always thought fewer inquiries and low utilization generally were good for my scores. Now I'm not so sure...
Thanks in advance for clearing up my confusion!
1. When you get an alert it's not necessarily tied to the score change that might accompany it.
2. Although inquiries & utilization both count, they are vastly different in their effect. (a) Inquiries and other "newness" measures represent about 10% of your scoring, while utilization represents about 30% of your scoring (b) credit card utilization is maximized by having all cards but one reporting a zero balance, and other card reporting a small balance, (c) inquiries stop pulling your FICO score down further when they reach a certain number... e.g. if the magic number for inquiries to be "bad" is 10, it doesn't matter for your score whether you have 10 or15.
