31 Point All Zero Penalty

[Varsity_Lu]

My wife's Experian FICO 8 just dropped an astonishing 31 points due to the all zero penalty. She went from 773 to 742. Totally my fault as I just didn't pay attention to the statement cut dates. It will bounce back and I know it's not really a big deal for us (we are a cash-only family and have no loans, so our credit score is just for funsies), but I thought the data point was worth noting.

[FICOdawg]

So is the game to just rollover $20 on a card continuously?

More evidence of FICO absurdity.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Never "rollover". Always PIF statement balances in full. The easy way to avoid the penalty associated with: "No recent revolving activity" is to allow charges to report on monthly statements.

* I am not an AZE1 practioner. I do adhere to PIF.

[markbeiser]

You can't be going around not owing any banks money, BAD debit slave!🤪

[SouthJamaica]

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@Varsity_Lu wrote:

My wife's Experian FICO 8 just dropped an astonishing 31 points due to the all zero penalty. She went from 773 to 742. Totally my fault as I just didn't pay attention to the statement cut dates. It will bounce back and I know it's not really a big deal for us (we are a cash-only family and have no loans, so our credit score is just for funsies), but I thought the data point was worth noting.

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Yeah, it's a data point worth noting. Ugh.

[Realist]

Thanks for the datapoint.

I suspect there has to be more to this as to why you were dinged that much.  We always pay off our balances every month, and we're always 800+ consistently.  820 last I checked.  Usually, even with negatives we seem to stay the same or go up.

I've only recently decided to toss the bankers their tiny scraps of meat, leaving $10-$20 to report on a single card.  I want to see if there's any impact.  Routinely bounce betwee 820-839, and can't seem to make it move both up or down, regardless of the negatives I add to the account.

[Varsity_Lu]

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@Realist wrote:

Thanks for the datapoint.

I suspect there has to be more to this as to why you were dinged that much.  We always pay off our balances every month, and we're always 800+ consistently.  820 last I checked.  Usually, even with negatives we seem to stay the same or go up.

I've only recently decided to toss the bankers their tiny scraps of meat, leaving $10-$20 to report on a single card.  I want to see if there's any impact.  Routinely bounce betwee 820-839, and can't seem to make it move both up or down, regardless of the negatives I add to the account.

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Pretty sure it's only the one factor. She hasn't had any inq or new accounts, nothing dropped off, and all her account age metrics improved. Her utilization is the only thing it could be.

[FicoMike0]

Let us know if she gets it all back.

[Varsity_Lu]

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@FicoMike0 wrote:

Let us know if she gets it all back.

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She gained 4 points a few days ago, but I am pretty sure she just had an inquiry from last Feb fall off. She is still showing 0% utilization. I'll update again in a week or two once some statements cut for the new month.

[Varsity_Lu]

One of her cards just reported a $52 balance a few days ago and her score jumped back up to 772.  So she initially lost 31 points, then gained back 4 for some reason a few days later, and then gained back 26 once she was no longer reporting all zeros.