Experian - 29 pt dip. Seriously???

[Anonymous]

Received notification this morning about a 29 pt decrease on my Experian Fico. I was behind a day making my payment before the bill cut and Cap 1 reported me at 44% utl. I was at 2% last cycle. Would this really create a 29pt decrease?

Keep in mind, I am carrying a balance of $400 across all CC's for a total of $27k LOC - 2% utilization across the board.

TU and EQ did not change. Does Experian score based on individual card and not overall utilization?

Help me understand pls credit gurus.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Received notification this morning about a 29 pt decrease on my Experian Fico. I was behind a day making my payment before the bill cut and Cap 1 reported me at 44% utl. I was at 2% last cycle. Would this really create a 29pt decrease?

Keep in mind, I am carrying a balance of $400 across all CC's for a total of $27k LOC - 2% utilization across the board.

TU and EQ did not change. Does Experian score based on individual card and not overall utilization?

Help me understand pls credit gurus.

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All three score on both individual and aggregate utilization metrics; however, this sounds a little high for that.  Are you certain nothing else changed on the report?  End of the day unless you're keeping pretty for an application this isn't a big deal if it's just one of the three utilization calculations you'll be fine next month if you address it.

Out of curiosity though I don't think it would account for this large of a drop, how many credit cards and lines of credit or other revolving tradelines do you have, and of those how many have balances reported on them currently?

[Anonymous]

Revelate - Thanks for the reply. It's a crazy decrease in my opinion. From my stand point it is a huge deal considering I had a 570 just under 60 days ago and worked hard to raise it 79 pts in a short period. No changes to CR. I log in to myfico.com and CK 3 times a day, each, nothing crazy...

I always though ult was calculated across all reported balances vs avail credit across all revolving accts :/

I'm gearing up to buy a home before Christmas. My goal will be to hit 700 by end of Oct. Little bit of a set back here...

Here are my cards and balances:

Cap 1 Quicksilver One - $10/$4500cl - CL increase from 1500-4500 June

Cap 1 Quicksilver - $330ish/$750cl (Used as my daily spender to avoid over spending lol)

NFCU - $0/$18,000cl - New acct

Merrick Bank - $0/$500cl

Verve - $96/$500cl (Damn Annual Fee lol)

Express - $0/500cl - New acct

VS - $0/$350cl - New acct

JCREW - $0/$300cl

All new accts are reporting on credit reports as of 7/7

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Revelate - Thanks for the reply. It's a crazy decrease in my opinion. From my stand point it is a huge deal considering I had a 570 just under 60 days ago and worked hard to raise it 79 pts in a short period. No changes to CR. I log in to myfico.com and CK 3 times a day, each, nothing crazy...

I always though ult was calculated across all reported balances vs avail credit across all revolving accts :/

I'm gearing up to buy a home before Christmas. My goal will be to hit 700 by end of Oct. Little bit of a set back here...

Here are my cards and balances:

Cap 1 Quicksilver One - $10/$4500cl - CL increase from 1500-4500 June

Cap 1 Quicksilver - $330ish/$750cl (Used as my daily spender to avoid over spending lol)

NFCU - $0/$18,000cl - New acct

Merrick Bank - $0/$500cl

Verve - $96/$500cl (Damn Annual Fee lol)

Express - $0/500cl - New acct

VS - $0/$350cl - New acct

JCREW - $0/$300cl

All new accts are reporting on credit reports as of 7/7

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Hello and thanks for sharing your story. It has been recommended by numerous members on the forum that you should allow only one credit card to report a balance per month. Also, new accounts, in the beginning, can cause a dip in your credit score. 

Once you pay the Cap 1 balance and the system updates next month you should recover those 29 points as long as it's the only reason for a drop in your score. 

Please keep us posted!!!

[Revelate]

I hate to sound preachy but why open up new accounts when a mortgage is in the cards 4 months out?  If someone explicitly suggested you go apply using the SCT trick, well it wasn't a good idea especially in this situation if it ever is actually... your 4 credit cards were more than enough to max out that portion of the scorecard when it came to mortgage optimization.  TANSTAAFL, especially with credit scoring.

While it may be true that lenders for the most part are only asking for a justification of inquiries and tradelines opened within the last 4 months, the fact is they do impact your credit score (inquiries for a year, new accounts depends on your file) and I would hope for everyone that house >>>>>> credit card.

BBP posted a good recommendation, as there's three metrics for scoring from all reported data and from reason code / FICO disclosures:

• Aggregate utilization
• Individual tradeline utilization
• Number of revolving tradelines carrying a balance

You're getting dinged on that last one, you may be getting dinged on some of the others too from what you posted.  Pretty up your file and then take a new snapshot, also be aware that the near entirety of mortgages underwritten in the United States aren't on the FICO 8 model... pull a 3B report before you take the mortgage swing is my recommendation especially if you have a specific tier you're trying to hit for a given loan product.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Why the new cards?  Well, honestly, it was an uneducated decision. I assumed I need additional credit accounts to boost my score and thought the best way to do it would be without a hard pull.  Upon first reporting to Transunion of the "Store Cards", my score went up 12 points, one of the other CB's, EQ or EX took a dip of 4 pts after all cards reported.

NFCU CC was something that presented itself after applying for a new account.  I was getting a membership with them no matter what and I already had the HP to open the acct, i figured what the heck, see if I could get a card too.  This approval was the costly one.  2 hard pulls and a change in AAoA - Great starting limit though.

Cant control whats already happened, just gotta do whats best moving forward.  If I would have reaseached more prior to my apps I definnelty would have done things different. Hope any newbs reading this thread are learning a thing or two...

So, Whats your opinion on getting added on to a couple of accts that are paid off and have been open for over 7yrs as an auth user? Could this help me gain some points by improving my AAoA? I received 3 PFD's yesterday for some medical bills and have 3 other PFD's out that Im waiting on approval.

I expect to see another spike come 8/1 after addressing the Cap 1 issue disscussed earlier and having 3 collections fall off.  Any other suggestions to get a little lift im all ears.

[Anonymous]

They're not totalling much but are all across the board.  Try paying on all but one if you can.  Keeping ut below 10%.  If it's 44% Rev, it's possible he's taking a hit on both the ut and all the cards.  With scores being lower, it's possibe for OP's score to dip quite a bit.

[damnedanddetermined]

How in the world did you get all of those cards/limits with a 570 fico? and yes, I agree ith Rev

[Anonymous]

Damnedanddetermined:

Verve - Will give a $500 SL card to anyone as long as you'll pay the fees.

Merrick - SL $500, has been a great rebuilder card.

Cap 1 QS One - SL $300 originally was a standard Platinum Card couple years ago, steady increase since then: $300, $500, $1500, $4500 then upgraded to QS1

Cap 1 QS - Just about 1 yr old. SL $500, bumped to $750. Due another CLI next month.

NFCU - Applied for card with Fico of about 630ish-640ish across the 3 CRAs. Had virtually $0 balance across all cards b4 application which pushed scores up from the 570's. Add in solid income, out came a $18k SL.

Anyone have advice on the Auth User question I had posted above?

[Anonymous]

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@Revelate wrote:

I hate to sound preachy but why open up new accounts when a mortgage is in the cards 4 months out?  If someone explicitly suggested you go apply using the SCT trick, well it wasn't a good idea especially in this situation if it ever is actually... your 4 credit cards were more than enough to max out that portion of the scorecard when it came to mortgage optimization.  TANSTAAFL, especially with credit scoring.

While it may be true that lenders for the most part are only asking for a justification of inquiries and tradelines opened within the last 4 months, the fact is they do impact your credit score (inquiries for a year, new accounts depends on your file) and I would hope for everyone that house >>>>>> credit card.

BBP posted a good recommendation, as there's three metrics for scoring from all reported data and from reason code / FICO disclosures:

• Aggregate utilization
• Individual tradeline utilization
• Number of revolving tradelines carrying a balance

You're getting dinged on that last one, you may be getting dinged on some of the others too from what you posted.  Pretty up your file and then take a new snapshot, also be aware that the near entirety of mortgages underwritten in the United States aren't on the FICO 8 model... pull a 3B report before you take the mortgage swing is my recommendation especially if you have a specific tier you're trying to hit for a given loan product.

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Excellent 

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@Revelate wrote:

I hate to sound preachy but why open up new accounts when a mortgage is in the cards 4 months out?  If someone explicitly suggested you go apply using the SCT trick, well it wasn't a good idea especially in this situation if it ever is actually... your 4 credit cards were more than enough to max out that portion of the scorecard when it came to mortgage optimization.  TANSTAAFL, especially with credit scoring.

While it may be true that lenders for the most part are only asking for a justification of inquiries and tradelines opened within the last 4 months, the fact is they do impact your credit score (inquiries for a year, new accounts depends on your file) and I would hope for everyone that house >>>>>> credit card.

BBP posted a good recommendation, as there's three metrics for scoring from all reported data and from reason code / FICO disclosures:

• Aggregate utilization
• Individual tradeline utilization
• Number of revolving tradelines carrying a balance

You're getting dinged on that last one, you may be getting dinged on some of the others too from what you posted.  Pretty up your file and then take a new snapshot, also be aware that the near entirety of mortgages underwritten in the United States aren't on the FICO 8 model... pull a 3B report before you take the mortgage swing is my recommendation especially if you have a specific tier you're trying to hit for a given loan product.

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A very thorough response Relevate. I totally missed the comment about the mortgage. I agree with every thing you said. I have seen a lot of post on this forum which state there should be a minimum of a 6 month gap between last app and mortgage apps.