On Nov 19th, my Experian score dropped from 745 to 741. I believe that happened when my BECU line of credit first reported to the bureau, a 4 point drop.
Since that time, it has stayed 741, as reported daily by CreditCheckTotal. Since then, in this order:
-- The inquiry for my rental apartment aged over 1 year, score remained 741
-- The inquiry for CITI hit my Experian report, score remained 741
-- My new CITI account reported to Experian for the first time, score remained 741
-- My new Discover account reported to Experian for the first time, score remained 741
-- The inquiry for my FirstTech credit card aged over 1 year, score remained 741
I would have expected some ups and downs through those events--new accounts, new inquiries, inquiries aging off--but nothing. 741, 741, 741 every day without fail no matter what I do.
I have also had some accounts report 0 in some months, and non-zero in other months, though I always have at least three accounts report (always PRG, always Amazon, and previously always BoA but now always CITI and Discover, with BoA now going to zero). My utilization has remained very low, about 2-3%, since I pay in full every month and much of my spending goes to the Amex PRG which doesn't count towards utilization. I've had one card (my Amazon store card) go over 20% utilization briefly (and repor that way) but there was no impact on my score when it went up, and no impact when I paid it back down at the end of the month.
Either CreditCheckTotal is just broken and not reporting updates or I've somehow arrived at a condition that locks me into this score somehow. I don't think it's broken, I see the same score on Amex, which reports a few weeks behind reality--but is also showing 741 for Experian. And it WAS updating my score before, and it does update with the new information--I see the inquiries and the accounts there and such. But no score change.
Not that I'm complaining that much. Being stuck at 741 sure beats being stuck at 739! And I'm effectively in the garden now for many months to come, so I don't need to optimize it for anything right now.
But it's odd!
Other details for any credit sleuths trying to figure this out: My oldest account is 16 months, my average age is 9 months, all accounts listed in my siggy. I have no derogatories on my file at all, no lates, no records. My history is clean, but relatively short. In terms of inquiries, in addition to those mentioned above there's another one from Amex from April, so my # of inquiries under a year went 3->2->3->2. Plaintly bouncing between 3 and 2 isn't doing anything. I would have expected the two new accounts to have an impact though?
My only theory is I have so many new accounts, under 2 years, that I've paid the full new accont penalty and there's nothing more to pay. So I'll likely sit at this score until either I drop to 1 or maybe even 0 inquiries, or until my oldest account hits 2 years, or my AAoA hits... what.. 2 years? So I might be at 741 for a LONG time.
