Closing two Accounts made score drop 4 points

[cinnamongirl]

In the last couple weeks, I closed two cards (limit totalling about 20k)and they just reported today.. with a score drop of 4 points. I thought that closed accounts didn't affect your Credit Score until they fell off at 10 years.. .why would my score immediately drop.. my usage was only at about 3% and available credit is a huge amount (for me!) at over 300k...so why would closing these two ding my score?

[Anonymous]

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@cinnamongirl wrote:

In the last couple weeks, I closed two cards (limit totalling about 20k)and they just reported today.. with a score drop of 4 points. I thought that closed accounts didn't affect your Credit Score until they fell off at 10 years.. .why would my score immediately drop.. my usage was only at about 3% and available credit is a huge amount (for me!) at over 300k...so why would closing these two ding my score?

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The closing of credit cards does not cause score drops by itself.  If the limits you closed caused a utilization jump then that could cause the score drop.  Assuming that this is a FICO score that you are talking about where are you seeing a 4 point drop?  First, a 4 point change in any one direction by itself is very minor and could be caused by a myriad of factors, some of which we do not know.  Keep in mind that if you subscribe to the FICO monitoring service, that the alert you received for a score drop is not necessarily  tied to what is listed on the alert

[go_FICO_self]

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@cinnamongirl wrote:

In the last couple weeks, I closed two cards (limit totalling about 20k)and they just reported today.. with a score drop of 4 points. I thought that closed accounts didn't affect your Credit Score until they fell off at 10 years.. .why would my score immediately drop.. my usage was only at about 3% and available credit is a huge amount (for me!) at over 300k...so why would closing these two ding my score?

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4 points it not a significant result. If anything, I'd say you expected your scores to stay the same, and they did (more or less).

[cinnamongirl]

ok.. so you're saying just because I received the alert that something had changed (two closed accounts) and the score drop on the same day-- they aren't necessarily related?? If some other change caused it, wouldn't I have received an alert about that also??

[cinnamongirl]

why was this post moved???... i could not access that link, it says I do not have sufficient priviledges!

[go_FICO_self]

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@cinnamongirl wrote:

ok.. so you're saying just because I received the alert that something had changed (two closed accounts) and the score drop on the same day-- they aren't necessarily related?? If some other change caused it, wouldn't I have received an alert about that also??

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yes, they may not also be related. you get alerts for score changes even if nothing really changes in your reports.

again 4 points is nothing to lose sleep over.

[Anonymous]

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@cinnamongirl wrote:

ok.. so you're saying just because I received the alert that something had changed (two closed accounts) and the score drop on the same day-- they aren't necessarily related?? If some other change caused it, wouldn't I have received an alert about that also??

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Not necessarily.  This link shows what cause alerts to be issued.  Because FICO scoring is proprietary we will never know all of the cause for score changes unfortunately.  

http://myfico.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/463/~/understanding-what-triggers-fico%C2%AE-3-bu...

[cinnamongirl]

True but I'm waiting for a big hit this week with a couple new accounts opened so I don't want to lose anymore points before that happens!!

[Anonymous]

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@cinnamongirl wrote:

ok.. so you're saying just because I received the alert that something had changed (two closed accounts) and the score drop on the same day-- they aren't necessarily related?? If some other change caused it, wouldn't I have received an alert about that also??

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Yes and not necessarily.

[cinnamongirl]

Thanks everyone! Just sad.. i worked so hard to gain those points  it's been a looooonnnggggggg road.