16pt drop when AU CC was paid down to zero, why?

[omgitsMatt]

16pt drop on TU & Experian when AU CC was paid down to zero, why? One other CC still has a balance too.

My wife did a balance transfer with a recent promo card with a low interest rate period, taking all the balances we have onto that one CC. So her CC, the one I’m on as an AU, went down to 0. If that was my one card reporting a balance I’d get the point drop for not having a balance on any revolvers, however I still have a reported balance on one of the CCs we share as a joint account holder. That one won’t reflect the $1 balance it now carries until 7 to 10 days from now.

My profile is incredibly thin, it’s impossible to get lost when looking at it. There’s no secrets unknown to me, it is far too small to have anything hidden.

What happened here? I was expecting nothing at most and hoping to find the AU account impacts my score to a degree and get a boost from it reporting a zero balance. I didn’t expect anything though, but was hoping for it. You never know how an AU account reports and whether they give you full credit or not until something like this happens.

What I didn’t expect was a point drop though, I found that weird.

This is what my profile looked like just before it happened. The only difference the next day when the drop was reported to me was the KeyBank CC was at 0 instead of 645.

Fico 8 Scores

Equifax, Transunion, Experian

719, 699, 702

Canton School Employees FCU CC (Joint Account) (5 months old)

$13,682/$15,000 (91.21%)

KeyBank CC (Authorized User) (6 yrs, 4 months old)

$645/$7,500 (0.086%)

Capital One CC (11 months old)

$0/$500 (0%)

NFCU CC (5 months old)

$0/200 (0%)

Canton School Employees FCU Auto Loan (5 months old)

$16,892/$18,047 (93.6%)

NFCU Secured Loan (5 months old)

$245/$3,001 (8.16%)

Below are my Fico 8 scores now after the new balance reported,

Equifax, Transunion, Experian

719, 683, 686

[omgitsMatt]

Could they be treating the joint account like they do some AU accounts and not scoring me on it utilization wise?

And could the AU account be being scored fully utlization wise?

If so, that's really really weird. I never heard of that

Later this month I might find out a lot more when that high balance drops to just $1 I guess

But it's still really strange

[omgitsMatt]

Is a CU CC treated differently than a Bank CC maybe?

[Anonymous]

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@omgitsMatt wrote:

Is a CU CC treated differently than a Bank CC maybe?

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In some instances yes, which is why it's always recommended that you allow at least one small balance to report on a major bank card.

Are you seeing a negative reason statement that points to "no revolving credit use?"  If so, the algorithm is not "counting" the CU CC.

If you are not seeing that negative reason statement, your score dropped for a different reason.

Remember, alerts and score changes do not have to be at all related.

[Drwaz99]

This seems like another DP for when you have a thin-ish file and an AU reports zero you lose 10-20 points. I wonder if, in this situation when the AU posts zero, the AU is effectively discounted and you lose any scoring benefit it may provide.

My very similar experience, where my AU reported zero, I lost 15 pts and then regained them when it posted another small balance:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Updated-15-pt-score-drop-trying-to-figur...

One other DP. Also note post number 4, too, as a possible 4th DP:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/My-score-dropped-14-points-and-I-can-t-f...

OP: If you can, try having a small balance report on your AU while not having any other changes to your report and see what happens. My gut feeling is you'll regain your points. 

[omgitsMatt]

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@Drwaz99 wrote:

OP: If you can, try having a small balance report on your AU while not having any other changes to your report and see what happens. My gut feeling is you'll regain your points.

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I can't, by the time the AU would report a balance I'd have two HPs fall off, my oldest account turn 1yr and my highest balance card would go from $13,682.00/$15,000 to just reporting $1.

I can start over from scratch though and recreate this after my balances and uti settles and confirm for certain wheter it's contributing to the score fluctuation.

Instead of letting that CU CC report $1, I'll let it do $0.

Then start using my Capital One CC to report the small balance instead of the CU CC.

Then once the AZEO method is implemented properly with a bank card, not a CU CC, I'll start experimenting with letting the AU post a balance.

By the time I start doing all that everything should stay the same month to month. But this month is shot, no way for me to reverse engineer this with the $13k balance going to zero is a few days.

[Drwaz99]

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@omgitsMatt wrote:

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@Drwaz99 wrote:

OP: If you can, try having a small balance report on your AU while not having any other changes to your report and see what happens. My gut feeling is you'll regain your points.

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I can't, by the time the AU would report a balance I'd have two HPs fall off, my oldest account turn 1yr and my highest balance card would go from $13,682.00/$15,000 to just reporting $1.

I can start over from scratch though and recreate this after my balances and uti settles and confirm for certain wheter it's contributing to the score fluctuation.

Instead of letting that CU CC report $1, I'll let it do $0.

Then start using my Capital One CC to report the small balance instead of the CU CC.

Then once the AZEO method is implemented properly with a bank card, not a CU CC, I'll start experimenting with letting the AU post a balance.

By the time I start doing all that everything should stay the same month to month. But this month is shot, no way for me to reverse engineer this with the $13k balance going to zero is a few days.

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I agree, wait until your until the changes and your score settles and it should be easy to tell. It'd be a great data point for us here but it'll also help you understand how the changes to your own report can affect your scores. I've been able to reproduce this again since my initial question in April: I lost points when my AU posted a zero balance and I had one very small balance (~3%) post on my Citi card and no other balances in June - then regained the exact same number of points in July when my AU posted a $50 balance with no other changes to my report.  

[omgitsMatt]

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@Drwaz99 wrote:

I totally get what you're saying. Maybe there's just such a small subset of people who have only 2 or so major bank cards that only post small balances on one of them, a small balance on the AU, and pays attention to their FICOs as we do. Personally, I believe there's something there that's maybe just so rare since it only affects a small percentage of people that the DPs are just hard to come by. What it is, I'm just not well versed enough to even attempt to try to guess. I just know it definitely affected me - so it'll be curious to see if the OP can get a small balance back on his AU card posted without any other major changes and report back so we can see what happens.

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Okay, so here's a quote from one of the threads you linked earlier. I think I fit into the small box you talk about and I also keep track of my FICOs. So yeah, this would be perfect for both of us if I tested it out on my own profile.

I went down before 3pm to pay that $1 in person at my local CU, perfect timing because had I not done it today in person the payment wouldn't of cleared in time and slowed us down by about 2 weeks.

- Around the 19th my local CU will update my credit and it'll report the balance at zero. All revolvers will be reporting at zero then.

- On 10/1 a HP turns a yr old from Cap1 and the account itself also becomes offically a yr old.

- Then another HP ages to a year on 10/5.

- Then 10/6 my statement cuts with Cap1, I'll make sure to have exactly 2% balance report. At that point I'll be AZEO with a big bank card reporting the balance, not one of my CU accounts.

- Then 10/12 I'll have the AU accounts report also exactly 2% balance.

I'll keep track of my scores as things report. Then when 11/12 comes along and it goes from reporting a 2% balance back to a 0% balance, I'll update.

Then 12/12, when that comes, I'll put the 2% back on and see what it does again.

I'll keep everything exactly the same as best I can and update you in a few weeks.

Thanks Drwaz99!

[Anonymous]

When you say a big bank card I hope you mean a big bank not a big credit limit because remember huge credit limits can be excluded as well.

[omgitsMatt]

Yes, I meant big bank.