I just don't get it!

[lmohearn]

My scores are generally 740-760 for the past 4 monts (I'm obsessive and pull scores monthly). I pull my scores today and they are in the 710-730 range?? The only thing that has changed in the last month was I paid down $1,000 on my credit cards?? How can paying down a thousand dollars in debt cause your FICO score to drop 30-40 points?

[fishbjc]

A new bucket?  TTT....

[lmohearn]

I went through the reports, the only new is the debt paydown. I have not aplied for any new credit, have not been late on anything, none of my other balances increased in the past month (they actually went down a little) yet my score dropped?

I have about $11,500 5n CC debt with limits totaling $68,200, so I have about 17% of my total available credit card credit used. Home payments are timely, HELOC payments timely, my my outstanding balances went down overall in the past month so I'm stumped as to why my credit score would drop roughly 30 points in a month.

[marty56]

I will assume that you got the scores from this site.  On the "Understanding Your Score Page", what is the reported %util.  Make sure your HELOC is not reporting as a CC.  Do you have more CCCs reporting a balnce even though the total util is lower?

[lmohearn]

FAKO??

I think I may have figured it out. I moved a balance from one card to another card to get a 0% interest rate. The card I moved the balance to has a lower credit limit, could that be part of it?

[Anonymous]

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lmohearn wrote:

I think I may have figured it out. I moved a balance from one card to another card to get a 0% interest rate. The card I moved the balance to has a lower credit limit, could that be part of it?

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Both total AND individual utilization percentages count towards FICO scoring, so if the utilization percentage on that card is higher, that could certainly do it.