Why is my credit score decreasing?

[Anonymous]

Hey myFICO Forums,

My Discover Card provides a free FICO credit score.  In November it was 738, it has now decreased to 722.  My Capital One Card also provides a credit score, it was 738 in November and now is 775.  I dont care about the numbers being different between the two cards as long as they both decrease/increase together.  My Discover has decreased each month for 3 months, while my Capital One has increased each month for 3 months.  Over the last 3 months I have had zero credit card debt and have had no missed/late payments.  On top of that my school loan payment has been $430 ($1,290 over 3 months),  I have paid $7,694.80 over the last 3 months, and at the end of the week I will pay off the remaining balance.  I will only have my car loan which I have been making the minimum payments on.  Being worried that there was potentially some sort of fraud or some obscure late payment somewhere I purchased a 3 Bureau Report from this site, my scores were 723, 724 and 729.  The reports showed no derogatory or delinquint payments  Is there anything else I can do to find out if there is omething late or in collections on my account,t hanks.

[Anonymous]

No.  You would know if there was something wrong if you purchased the 3B, and are also monitoring via CreditKarma/Sesame etc. 

That 3B is going to tell you everything you need to know. 

Sometimes scores rise and fall with just normal wear and tear.  I know I have seen people post where their scores drop when they pay off a big loan, say a mortgage, car loan, etc.  Also if you have credit and aren't using it and PIF each month (or pay all to 0 with one reporting...) that could be it too.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have paid $7,694.80 [on my student loan]  over the last 3 months, and at the end of the week I will pay off the remaining balance.  I will only have my car loan which I have been making the minimum payments on. 

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Would you be willing to hold of on that decision, until you talk to some folks here on the forum?  It's quite possible you will do some damage to your score if you do that.  More than that, there's a chance that your student loan is now in a real sweet position: an account that it might cost you next to nothing to keep open for many more years, which has in itself some real advantages.

Not telling you there is a Right Answer here, just would hate for you to make a hasty decision thinking it would help you, and then later discovering it was the other way around.  Just want you to be armed with all the info before you decide.

[RobertEG]

Do you have any unpaid collections that are updating?

[Anonymous]

OP, as I'm sure you are aware based onthe mere scores themselves, the score you are receiving from Discover and the score you are receiving from Capital One are based on different scoring models.  Discover uses FICO 08, probably the most commonly talked about score on this forum and Capital One uses VantageScore 3.0.  Both creditors base their scores off of TransUnion data, but the scoring models are different.  They will not rise/fall relative to one another as different parts to the scoring algorithm are factored in differently into these two scoring models.  I'd follow the Discover score more closely as it's a FICO score that will be used much more commonly by other lenders.