Fico score dropped 14 points in one day/no purchases/lates in 4 years. ????

[Anonymous]

Hello,

  I'm new to the board and have a question.  I'm signed up for scorewatch and about a week after I initially signed up, I recieved an alert telling me my score dropped from 712 to  698.   It gave the reason as

You have a consumer finance account on your credit report.

I have a 20+ year credit history and I only have $2000 in credit card debt(no lates, paying regularly at more than the minimum)   My only other debt is my mortgage(no lates ever and my student loan-last late payments were 4 years ago on student loan).   I am really frustrated and it didn't do a good job of explaining why my score dropped when I made no new charges in three years and have not missed a payment on anything in 4 years???

HELP!!!

Thanks,.
Jason

[medicgrrl]

If you go to the "credit alerts" tab in scorewatch it will actually show you the specific information/account that has changed on your report.  It should have a date next to the account that corresponds to the date you received the email

[Anonymous]

Hi,

   Thanks for your response.  I already checked that area and all of the tabs say no new alerts and no activity.  It also says that my FICO score changed on a day when there was no credit alerts.  This is truely frustrating and mystifying.

Jason

[Anonymous]

re-bucket perhaps?

[Anonymous]

Rebucketing, like mickie said, is my guess.  If nothing changed in your CR as content, then you have had "aging."

Once you cross an aging threshold, you may rebucket, which means your FICO is graded against a new bucket of peer CR's, which can often mean an initial drop in score then gradual rise as long as you continue to keep credit clean and follow credit basics.