Credit score plummets 60 pts in 2 weeks??

[Anonymous]

Sorry in advance as I'm certain many have asked or moaned about this same topic a million times already - but I've searched around and nothing really 'matches' up with my question/scenario - and with this new C/A's summer 'rule change' coming (or has come?) I'm now wondering if that has something to do with it all?



All that said - I was having a great conversation with a few ppl in the 'auto loans' section here and been watching my credit score like a hawk as I weigh out which new car to purchase as I got $45K approval from Cap One Auto and the myFICO group here was awesome addressing a few Q's I had as I go in to buy ... (yet to do, as I want to up my down payment some more, to lower my monthly payment) but I digress... and back to today's topic...



Anyway - I was overseas for 5 years and came back to a blank '0' score!! (literally I had NOTHING on my credit report 18 months ago! - and had a ZERO score) - According to Dave Ramsey, this is a great thing! lol - But he has millions to fall back on, whereas, I travel for biz too much and have to rent cars, hotels, client dinners, fly etc etc etc so I personally need credit cards to travel and conduct business - Now, usually I run things thru my companies - but with a house purchase on the horizon, I had to beef up my USA personal credit and so it began 18 months ago with a secured card and a few rip off $400-$700 cards just to get some sort of "presence" here again - And now, 18 months later, bingo! - I just broke the 720 mark across the board 2 weeks ago and was so excited...! (FICO is 748) and have 14 lines of credit, with over $35K in available (considering I started with a $500 secured card to $6000 now with AMEX Blue (just got it 3 months ago) I've come a fairly long way, in a very short time - and am thrilled I was able to rebuild so fast and get such decent results WITH THE HELP of many *here* and on CK too (hey sorry - but credit where credit due) - no pun intended 



Anyway - Now, I got my CLI increase with AMEX doing the 30/6/6 thingy and it worked like a champ - and so I pulled my scores again looking to see if it's posted (I am signed up to EVERY service and they all 'match' across all 3 agencies within 5+/- pts) - so anyway, I go to see if my AMEX has posted after 90 days (always PIF, always) and it still has not - but that's $6K of credit I want showing, or added, so it'll help lower my overall utilization ... Anyway - I was doing handstands when I broke thru 720 just TWO WEEKS AGO - However that quickly disappeared when I pulled my score today, and it's plummeted 65 pts in just 2 weeks?? WHAT THE HECK?! - So I go and look at their 'factors' within each - and my util went from 12% to 22% despite more payments (PIF) on 95% of my cards and put one off (like $300 but only paid $200 of it - to rollover, as my financial advisor told me I need to "use your credit more" vs. sitting on $0 balances - but always pay in full - So, outside of a Care Credit Dental that's like a $5000 CL yet only owe $700 of that - Anyway - My UTIL is now 21% (still doesn't show the $6K AMEX @ $0 BAL yet as said) and the whole 'above average/average/below average' or Green/Yellow/Red lights or indicators these services show you or use to guide us, always ding me on "age of accounts" (for as said, I was overseas and everything good or bad fell off after 5 years) - so they treat me like I'm 15 years old lol - but in truth that gets a 'red' or 'below average' mark ("18 months" - yet some say I have 2-4 years of age?) so not sure why the differences there? - What else? So my UTIL went up 10pts but just paid everything off tonight - yet one their 'simulators' says even PIF that'll only bring me back up to 685ish??? - I get a 'green' or thumbs up for the 14 lines of credit - I also get a 'green' for 100% on time / PIF payments - The ONLY thing that's changed, is I applied for, and got surprisingly got rejected for a CapOne QS card application (despite even calling their reconsider line asking 'why'?) but suspect I've been lucky to get these 14 lines in just 18 months and only had 4-5 hard pulls showing! - however, that last Cap One pull pushed me to 6 hard inquiries - and that puts me into the 'red' zone now - and my score tanked 50-65 points??? WHAT?! I see several "credit repair companies" that say they can get hard inq's removed by just bombarding them with requests 'within 30 days' to remove them, or they just keep doing it over and over and over till they finally are removed - but they want like $3000+ to do this?? I think I can write my own letters to save that $3K - Plus some will fall off here soon on their own - others I'm stuck with for 20+/- months or less - but my question is - why did my score on all agencies plummet by 50-65 points?? What can I do to get back to my 720 score back where I was just 2 weeks ago?? Even the simulator says if I pay off the Dental bill in full (it's 0%APR for 24 mo that's why I'm not in a big rush plus have more DDS work to be done but is almost paid off) - yet even with the simulators if I pay everything off - I get a 'green' BUT it still leaves me at a sub-700 score? **bleep** is going on here? I have no collections or debts or slow pays - and despite ppl saying don’t carry more than 2-3 Cards, I had to jump start my credit history here in America ASAP and so it is what it is - I'll start card cutting the rubbish ones once I'm over 750+ but for today, I'm staying put as I get a 'green' or above average rating for having more than 10 lines of credit in good standing  - but I am not ready to buy a house here just yet and the car purchase was on the horizon - but if 1 hard inquiry tanks me 50-65 pts (with 6 hard pulls total now) I can only imagine what a car loan will do to my score eh? - So that car is going on the back burner till I get my credit sorted out to where it was just 2 weeks ago - I just don't get why I've done everything by the book perfectly (outside of the ill-advised application for a Cap One QS card that CK said I had a 'very good' chance of getting) that has tanked me for some reason - so I'm just gonna pay everything off - try to get some of these hard pulls removed - and maybe beg a relative to add me as an A/U to one of their key premium cards (they can cut it in half and remove me 3-6 months later) but that'll help solve the 'age' time issue problem I think - but I just don't get why 60 points disappeared overnight by going from 5 HP's to 6 HP's? I see others on here that have like 15-30 hard pulls? - surely 1 extra can't count as 50-60 pts - can it??



Open to any ideas, suggestions or reasons why all this has happened -



Thanks in advance!!



BB

[Anonymous]

My first question for you here is where did you get your score from 2 weeks ago and where did you get it today where you are seeing a 60 point difference?  If the source of the score isn't the same, using the same scoring model and same bureau data you aren't making a valid comparison of the scores with the only variable changing being time.

Some random points:

- Don't listen to what simulators say.  They are just guesses and often are wrong guesses. 

- Don't listen to CK approval odds.  Many have reported their decision to be the opposite of what the approval odds have suggested.

- All of the "green" and "red" color stuff is just fluff and has no bearing on your actual score.  Just because fluff monitoring software says you went from red to green on something, for example, doesn't mean your score would necessarily move a single point.

- Inquiries are the least of your problems, as they make up a very small portion of your FICO score.  If you have 4-5 per bureau, adding 1 more may result in a score drop of a few points, but never 60 points.

- If you've opened 14 accounts in 18 months, no doubt your AAoA is very low.  Sitting tight and letting your accounts age will help your score improve.

- CK "payment history 100%" is not accurate, as it only looks at payments from recently (1-2 years) where FICO scoring models are going to look at 7 years. 

- Utilization is the #1 thing you can fix right now.  If your overall utilization is in the double digits, you want to get it down below 8.99% to see a nice score bump.  Always PIF and let just one card report a small balance.  This is all you need to do to maximize the 30% of your score that makes up utilization.  Don't listen to some guy that tells you that using your cards heavily is going to somehow improve your credit score.

[AverageJoesCredit]

Some great points by BBS. Also, if you can, please break up your post into separate paragraphs as it will make it easier to read. Unfortunately, sometimes someone sees super long post and might skip over  important info you are providing. You have done great on building your  credit. Wish you the best

[Anonymous]

Thanks to you both. I have to run to the dentist for the aforementioned root canal but will try to comment more later. Sorry about the massive post. It was divided into neat paragraphs before but dragged it into a processor to spell check as it doesn't allow spell checking here for some reason and when I pasted it all back in I guess it stripped out all my breaks. Sorry. As to "where" I get my scores I'm registered with about 7 different companies and sites and apps and yes the same places that gave me the 720+ 2 weeks ago is the same that showed the drop. I agree with all your assessments and recommendations. Only so much one can do within 18 months and think I've done fairly well all things considered. I see Amex just popped on today finally so that dropped my util down near 10% and after all my payments made last night I'll be near zero outside of the dental one. So guess it's a case of "hurry up and wait". I just can't understand why it tanked 60pts and want to avoid having it happen again (all I did was apply for the CapOne QS card and got denied (first denial ever) and then my score tanked across the board. Shrug. So I dunno what caused that. But hope the payments in full and some of the inquiries dropping off and age of my credit over time will get me back up there. It just sucks to be at 720 one day and 659 the next. Ouch. Cheers. BB

[Anonymous]

You still haven't really addressed where you are getting your scores. You say many different places, but need to understand that these different sources may be using different scoring models. Eliminating sources providing you with a VS 3.0 score, what sources do you use to obtain FICO 08 scores? Do you have a FICO 08 score from 2 weeks ago and another now? If so, is it based on the same bureau data?

I want to be sure you are comparing apples to apples here. I also recommend you grab your 3 current FICO 08 scores from CCT for $1 if you haven't yet done so.

[Anonymous]

Am in bumper to bumper rush so gonna quickly answer this as I've just spent 4 hours in hell and once home am going straight to bed-so best to do this now... I got/get my "vanity credit scores" from a myriad of places but Experian direct is where I pull all 3 from (now and 2 weeks ago and 2 months ago and so on) and all 3 dropped 55-62 pts respectively. I have a Transunion account too that shows me just their score and it matches with my Experian report tick for tick and shows the same net loss. Where it starts going wobbly or wonky is with the ones you called out like Credit Karmas and similar. I get 7 FICO 08 scores from my banks, several CC's and even here. That number matches across the board, but have not checked it in 2 weeks but will do so this weekend once I've recovered. I'm in lala land atm- so just clue me in as to what CCT stands for please? And to kinda land the plane here I'll throw the problem back to the peanut gallery in that I still don't know exactly what caused my score to plummet? And even using their scenario tools ("what if I do XYZ") none of those actions or anything I've proposed bring me back above 699?!?!? So that's annoying, as all my biz cards hinge off my personal credit (personal guarantee as I start getting that established here again too after a 5 year absence). So what was once "fine" for say a Amex Plum or Ink or Spark card 2 weeks ago, is now out of reach - hence the urgency behind figuring out "why" this dropped so drastically? Hopefully with the Amex now showing and all my accounts PIF once they see that, it'll return to where it was 14 days ago? Hope so! Cheers

[Anonymous]

CCT stands for Credit Check Total.

At this point until you can nail down the exact scoring model and bureau you are talking about (EX FICO 08, for example) and are able to verify that you pulled that exact model score 2 weeks ago and then that exact model score again today (which CCT would allow you to do) I'm still not convinced that we're not comparing apples to oranges here.  You say you have 7 sources for FICO 08 scores, which is great, but you need to know the bureau they are using data from to generate that score and when the score was generated.  Let's get this resolved first before the discussion about a 60 point score drop continues.