I have had this happen too; from what I recall reading elsewhere on these forums, it had to do with something called "rebucketing".
In other words, you were at the top of a bucket of middling performance, and now are in a new bucket with better performers, and you stack up less favorably against them (like grading on a curve).
When it's happened to me before, it usually resolved in about 3mos.
I would search "rebucketing" on here, for better explanations.
Starting Score 9/13/14: 570Mine was a 77point drop, after clearing out a couple thousand in CC debt.
So 70 doesn't seem unlikely to me, but YMMV.
Edit to add: Also had a $4K CLI.
@Anonymous wrote:I am definitely confused by the recent 70 point drop on my TU report. The balance on one of my cards finally reported as decreased by $281 and an inquiry was removed causing a 70 point drop in my score. It is frustrating to not understand how all of this credit stuff truly works. I am reading and researching and everything says to keep credit utilization down. Why would this create a drop in my score vs an increase?
1. Reduction of a credit card balance would not cause a score reduction, unless (a) the balance were zero and (b) there were no other cards reporting a balance, in which case you could get an "all zero" penalty... but even then it would not be 70 points.
2. An inquiry being removed might cause a gain in points but would not cause a drop in points.
@Anonymous wrote:
@CreditCuriosity wrote:
@IantoJones wrote:I have had this happen too; from what I recall reading elsewhere on these forums, it had to do with something called "rebucketing".
In other words, you were at the top of a bucket of middling performance, and now are in a new bucket with better performers, and you stack up less favorably against them (like grading on a curve).
When it's happened to me before, it usually resolved in about 3mos.
I would search "rebucketing" on here, for better explanations.
70 point loss on rebucketing? seems a bit extreme to me. I don't keep up with scoring sub-forum much, but highly doubt that kinda hit.
Is it possible it is a mistake? I just updated my subscription to Fico Premier so I can monitor monthly and my score says 570. I will wait until tomorrow to see if there are any changes. Not certain if score change mistakes happen or not but...I'm being patient in this. Just want to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong which I know I'm not by paying my cards down to zero balance.
Unlikely it's a mistake. Likely you're making a mistake in interpretation.
Where, when, and how are you getting these scores you're talking about?