Credit Score went down after paying half my credit card debt off?

[BluesFan]

So I just paid almost 5k in credit card debt off, and the simulator was telling me that it would raise my score almost 40 points. 

I did it and my score dropped 5 points, seems weird to me. Does anyone know why that would happen?

[-NewGuy-]

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@BluesFan wrote:

So I just paid almost 5k in credit card debt off, and the simulator was telling me that it would raise my score almost 40 points. 

I did it and my score dropped 5 points, seems weird to me. Does anyone know why that would happen?

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Couple questions:

 - Are you sure that all your changes have posted already

 - What was your UTIL (total and individual by card) before and what is it now?

 - Which score / simulator are you using? Score Watch and the Equifax FICO here?

 - Are you now at 0% UTIL across all cards?

[BluesFan]

Couple questions:

 - Are you sure that all your changes have posted already. Yes, I matched the records on my Equifax report to the hard copies sent to me by the Bank.

 - What was your UTIL (total and individual by card) before and what is it now? Total credit utililization was 75% and is now 0%. It is almost as if the account is no longer included in my revolving credit totals.

 - Which score / simulator are you using? Score Watch and the Equifax FICO here? Yes, the simulator on this site

 - Are you now at 0% UTIL across all cards? Yes and that is the weird part, I think maybe now it is showing that I have no revolving credit at all, these account went to charge off about two years ago and we just paid a big chunk of them yesterday.

I have a secured card I got a month ago that has not shown yet on my credit report. I am right in hoping that it will raise my score by showing available revolving credit?

Thanks for the help, if you need more info please just ask, I really appreciate it.

[MidnightJester]

Can say this with scoring for sure. 0% Utilization is not as good scoring wise as 1-9%. You can def lose 20 or more points by paying all cards to zero. That is the way the crazy credit game works

[Anonymous]

A couple of questions.

1.  If you paid off the CCs yesterday, it's not clear how you would have an updated score today.  The updated balances have to be reported to the credit bureaus, and then a fresh score calculated, and I'm uncertain about how all this can happen so quickly.

2.  Before and after the payoff, how are the CCs listed on your report?  Are they charged off, in dispute, or anything like that?

[-NewGuy-]

OK, so these are not open and active accounts, they are charged off accounts?

[BluesFan]

Yes they were charged off back in 2012, we were struggling and this is what we chose to get out of hand. I have been paying 400 a month since we settled with them last year. I plan on buying a car in about 12-16 months and I am trying my best knock all the bad stuff I can off the report, so I got score watch.

When I looked at my accounts that were charged off I noticed the balance had not moved even though we were paying 400 a month for them. I got in contact with the creditor and asked them to update my account with the true balance and they were very quick with jumping on it. I even got the hard copies in the mail today.

So technically I have paid since Feb of last year but all that money came off today. My score watch obviously caught it and I was pretty excited and then I seen it dropped.

Weird situation for sure.

It looks as if the only thing changed though is the old balance of 3879 is now 1980. The missing half of the 5k I refered to in the first post was on the wife's card.

[-NewGuy-]

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@BluesFan wrote:

Yes they were charged off back in 2012, we were struggling and this is what we chose to get out of hand. I have been paying 400 a month since we settled with them last year. I plan on buying a car in about 12-16 months and I am trying my best knock all the bad stuff I can off the report, so I got score watch.

When I looked at my accounts that were charged off I noticed the balance had not moved even though we were paying 400 a month for them. I got in contact with the creditor and asked them to update my account with the true balance and they were very quick with jumping on it. I even got the hard copies in the mail today.

So technically I have paid since Feb of last year but all that money came off today. My score watch obviously caught it and I was pretty excited and then I seen it dropped.

Weird situation for sure.

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Perhaps that did it though. Since it hadn't updated in well over a year it was appearing to age, however with the update the derogatory became fresh again giving it the appearance of being newer than it really is.

[BluesFan]

Well that is kind of crappy but I guess it had to get updated at some point in time, so I guess better now than later.