@Cheryla18 wrote:
MyFico just sent me an alert and it was a 13 pt drop because VS updated that my CL went from 300 to 550? How does that happen? My balance didnt increase.
I'm confused
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl! It sounds like you have the myFICO Ultimate product, which gave you an "alert" that you are trying to describe for us.
The alert is describing a way your report has changed. (In this case, one of your credit limits went up.) When an "alertable" event occurs, the MF 3B monitoring product pulls your score again.
The message is explaining what the alertable event was. But there are a lot of events that are not alertable. What must have happened (with 100% certainty) is that something else changed on your report, either on the same day or in the previous several weeks. That other thing is what caused your score to go down. It's just that this not-so-good thing apparently wasn't alertable, so your score wasn't pulled at the time.
Again, it's really important to understand what these alerts are and what they are not. Most of us assume that when our score changes then MF sends us an alert telling us why. This is not what the alerts are. What the alerts do is tell you -- in a very limited set of circumstances, not all the time -- when the report has changed. The alert is telling you what alertable event happened.
You should congratulate yourself that you are coming to understand scoring well enough to realize that a credit limit going up would be very unlikely to cause your score to go down. (The only exception would be if it went to an obscenely high level like a CL of 60k -- which has been known to cause FICO to drop that card from utilization.)
Some people find an "alert" based system confusing and unhelpful, since it cannot be relied on (even most of the time) to explain why your score has changed. Such people switch to a system like CCT, which enables you to control when your score is pulled or (like me) they just use free tools to get their monthly FICO score and credit reports.
On the other hand, many others love the myFICO alerts. It's just important to know what they are.
