15 pt drop when lease balance went to $0

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2018

Hello friends. Subject says it all: Made last lease payment (all on time), and when balance reported at $0.00, I got an alert from EX saying by score had dropped by 15 points (761 to 746).

Normally wouldn't really worry, BUT -- I'm heading out this week to try to get a new car and really wanted the scores to be as high as possible.

So, my questions:

(1) Is this normal?

(2) Any idea how long it might take to rebound?

Thanks!

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2018

Was this your only open installment loan?

If so, it's 100% normal to see a score drop if your only open installment loan reports as closed, especially if the balance on the loan was small relative to the beginning balance at the time you paid it off.

Your scores won't really rebound from this, as the only way those points will come back is if you again possess another installment loan that's paid down to around the same amount that your last one was prior to the payoff.

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2018

Thanks. My only other loans are student loans (about $50k), but I'm never quite sure if/how those factor into the scoring. Other than than, nothing too exciting on my report. Util is at 1% (of $20k credit), and only one negative when I accidentally missed a small cc payment 18 months ago.

I guess I was just hoping all my scores would be in the 760+ range so I could be sure I'd get top tier credit on next lease, but sounds like that's not happening.

Anonymous · ‎05-03-2018

Have you made an attempt to get your lone late payment removed from your CR? That would definitely help your scores.

Anonymous · ‎05-04-2018

I did try. Wrote a goodwill letter but no luck.

@Anonymous wrote:
Have you made an attempt to get your lone late payment removed from your CR? That would definitely help your scores.

Anonymous · ‎05-04-2018

How do you get late payments removed ?

Anonymous · ‎05-04-2018

@Anonymous wrote:
How do you get late payments removed ?

Search this board for goodwill letters or GW letters. There's a TON of threads on it, all very helpful.

Anonymous · ‎05-04-2018

@AnonymousI did try. Wrote a goodwill letter but no luck.

@Anonymous

Try again. Then again many more times. It's taken me 100+ attempts on a couple of accounts to achieve the result I was looking for, but in all cases I was able to get it. I'd recommend reading the first post in this thread regarding the Saturation Technique:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/The-Saturation-Technique-Best-GW-adjustment-odds/td-p/4727098