8% to 7% --> 7 point increase?

[SouthJamaica]

The only change I can discern in my EX report from yesterday to today is one 23% revolver dropping to zero.

This caused accounts with balances to move from 13/30 to 12/30, and overall balance to move from rounded 8% to rounded 7%.

I would have predicted zero effect on my scores. But instead I got:

FICO 8     +7

FICO 2     +6

Auto 8     +9

BC 8        +7

This causes me to scratch my head, because I had a similar bounce when my overall utilization dropped from 7% to 6% a couple of weeks ago. They can't both be milestones, can they?

[Thomas_Thumb]

Nope.

That should direct your attention to other areas such as # of accounts with balances, # of accounts with ages under 3 months, 6 months and 12 months and perhaps impact of adding a charge card (improved credit mix?). Is the charge card showing on your report?

There have been some discussions that new accounts (and possibly inactive accounts) could impact score when they 1st report a new balance. If the account reports a "significant" balance score temporarily drops and then rebounds when payment is made. These observations were primarily on young, thin files.

In any event, you need to look outside the aggregate utilization box for root cause.

[SouthJamaica]

It was mid-month, and credit summary listed same ages, so aging can be eliminated

New charge card is not reporting yet, so that can be eliminated

Can 12/30 (or 40%) cards reporting a balance be a magic number for me? Somehow, I doubt that

dropping from 13 to 12 cards reporting a balance would move my scores to that degree.

[SouthJamaica]

Another change, one which I would have thought of as minor, is that the account which went from 23% down to 0% also reported a $1600 credit limit increase.

[Anonymous]

Do you have any non-revolving accounts with balances?

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Do you have any non-revolving accounts with balances?

---

I have one "reindeer games" SSL with a tiny balance. If you take that into account it would have been 14/31 dropping to 13/31.

[Anonymous]

I'm of the opinion that all accounts matter when discussing number/percentage of accounts with a balance, so the SSL I believe should be included in the numbers.  Whether or not that minor difference has any impact at all on the score shift you saw, who knows.

[NRB525]

SJ you are doing your best to ignore the obvious.

It’s the individual card utilization change. That has been the driver of your last few threads on these score changes.

Sorry but you don’t have a special Aggregate Utilization threshold at 6% and 7%.

It’s individual card utilization.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@NRB525 wrote:
SJ you are doing your best to ignore the obvious.

It’s the individual card utilization change. That has been the driver of your last few threads on these score changes.

Sorry but you don’t have a special Aggregate Utilization threshold at 6% and 7%.

It’s individual card utilization.

---

As I have previously mentioned, I have many individual utilization movements of that size, both up and down, which have no effect at all on the scores.

[Anonymous]

---

@SouthJamaica wrote:

---

As I have previously mentioned, I have many individual utilization movements of that size, both up and down, which have no effect at all on the scores.

---

Previously mentioned many times, indeed.  Previously ignored many times, certainly.