Does this make sense?

[Anonymous]

so I've been paying my discover and wells Fargo balances like three times these past three weeks. Got the wf from 576/600 down to 300/600 and the discover from 521/500 (Apple charged me $49.99 because my sibling made an in-app purchase without asking. They refunded the $49.99 though) down to 150/500. My question is... Why on earth did my EX score drop 4 points? Might not sound like a lot but I'm just curious as to why, if I'm paying my cards off more than once a month, would my score drop?? 

[Anonymous]

It literally says "The balance on one of your accounts has decreased by $206" and it shows the red arrow down 4 points. It says "utilization percentage 84% –> 50%" and the balance "$506.00 –> $300.00"

[Anonymous]

So EX went down 4 points and EQ went up 11 points. Anyone know why EX went down?

[Gunnar419]

First, good for you for paying those balances down! Second, is there anything else that's been going on on your credit reports? MyFico alerts aren't triggered by every significant event, only certain named events. So if you had some small negative thing reported, it could account for the drop without generating an alert.

Anything you know of going on with your EX CR? Sorry about that happening. I know it's frustrating, especially when you're expecting a bounce, not a drop.

[racer-x]

Rumor has it that the alerts that you get do not represent the actual change in score.  Many many other things have happened in your file that you're not allowed to know about.

If you don't know yet, we get alerts that do not represent the score changes, and we do not get alerts that do represent score changes.  We get insignificant alerts to the almighty significant score that we follow and try to increase daily.

That is not my assessment, that is what the 'smart credit people' on here will tell you. 

They don't respond very often to these threads anymore because their defense is tired and honestly doesn't hold any truth/facts of the matter, just speculation....IMHO of course.

[NRB525]

+1 for Gunnar

-1 for Racer X

OP, does the specific balance align with a reported balance? Which cards do you have? If you are paying them multiple times per month, it doesn't seem like they should update mid-cycle, although US Bank does that, at the end of the calendar month regardless of cycle.

What are your scores? Are there negatives in your file?

[Anonymous]

No negatives. Just like 8 inqs. As of now, EQ is 602, TU is 619, EX is 612. I got my first credit score last month, on the 10th so I'm new to credit got my first credit card in August of last year. Don't see why the scores would be so low though.. I'd understand all the inqs and high uti but I've always paid on time, a week or so before due date actually... And like twice the minimum amount due. 

[NRB525]

Can you list all your cards, the bank, credit limit, open amount (as last reported in an alert, and now) and month/year when each card was opened?

It looks like you may have high utilization overall on all your cards.

If you are just starting out, just building a file, that may not be much of an issue, the current score. You need to just pay regularly and build months of payment history.

[Anonymous]

1st Financial Bank: starting $250, opened August of last year with auto luv to $1000 just last month  || Discover it Student: $500 opened September of last year || Wells Fargo Student: $600 opened September of last year || Capital One Journey: $300 opened last month || Capital One Quicksilver One: $300 opened last month. 

So I just calculated and my overall utilization is 35%. That's bad, isn't it? 

[NRB525]

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@Anonymous wrote:

1st Financial Bank: starting $250, opened August of last year with auto luv to $1000 just last month  || Discover it Student: $500 opened September of last year || Wells Fargo Student: $600 opened September of last year || Capital One Journey: $300 opened last month || Capital One Quicksilver One: $300 opened last month. 

So I just calculated and my overall utilization is 35%. That's bad, isn't it? 

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No, it's not that bad. You have low limit cards, you have to expect some utilization like that, and 35% is not terrible.

The small point changes? Those are going to happen, it's noise in the calculations, which can be caused by changes in the amounts outstanding from month to month, the relative utilization changes as balances reported change.

Your main goal right now, because your cards are so new, is to just use the cards, and make sure you never miss at least making the minimum payment on time. You always want to try to make more than the minimum payment, PIF if possible. PIF is best, because then you avoid interest costs. The main influence on your FICO score is months of payment history. If you avoid late payments, missed payments and other negatives, your scores will continue to trend upward. You've only just begun. As more months of perfect payment go by, your score will get stronger (less noise) and will be trending upward.

Good luck!