Experian and Equifax scores dropped by 30 points due to balance transfer?

[RKintaudi]

Hey all, recently I did a balance transfer to get some high interest cc debt on to my credit union credit card. However, as a result my scores have dropped 30 points. The old card that the debt was transferred from had a $9,000 limit whereas the current card has a 7,500. My overall utilization is still at 16%, so why the gigantic drop in points? I would hope that it's just a delay in my old card reporting the new balance. If anyone has experienced this in the past, have you recovered all the points that you lost?

Thanks in advance!

R.K.

[SouthJamaica]

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@RKintaudi wrote:
Hey all, recently I did a balance transfer to get some high interest cc debt on to my credit union credit card. However, as a result my scores have dropped 30 points. The old card that the debt was transferred from had a $9,000 limit whereas the current card has a 7,500. My overall utilization is still at 16%, so why the gigantic drop in points? I would hope that it's just a delay in my old card reporting the new balance. If anyone has experienced this in the past, have you recovered all the points that you lost?

Thanks in advance!

R.K.

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In addition to overall utilization there's a separate issue of individual account utilization. If a balance transfer moves the balance to an account with a lower credit limit, the percentage will be higher. It's also possible that, due to different statement dates, both balances could be getting counted.

[RKintaudi]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@RKintaudi wrote:
Hey all, recently I did a balance transfer to get some high interest cc debt on to my credit union credit card. However, as a result my scores have dropped 30 points. The old card that the debt was transferred from had a $9,000 limit whereas the current card has a 7,500. My overall utilization is still at 16%, so why the gigantic drop in points? I would hope that it's just a delay in my old card reporting the new balance. If anyone has experienced this in the past, have you recovered all the points that you lost?

Thanks in advance!

R.K.

---

In addition to overall utilization there's a separate issue of individual account utilization. If a balance transfer moves the balance to an account with a lower credit limit, the percentage will be higher. It's also possible that, due to different statement dates, both balances could be getting counted.

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Hmm, well the credit card I transferred the balance to has a lower credit limit than the card I transferred from, but I really didn't think it would result in a 30 point drop.

I'm asssuming that since my credit union reports balances at the end of the month and chase reports it on the 6th of the month, both balances are being shown on my report. Hopefully that takes care of itself in a couple of days and I can recover those 30 points.

[Anonymous]

I'm not really sure how BTs work as I've never done one, but I could see there being a brief window where you are showing two maxed out or high balances as opposed to one.  For example if you do the BT and that card you are transferring from just reported a few days prior, it's going to be nearly a month more than likely before the new $0 balance reports.  During that period of time if the account your are transferring to reports, you're then in that snapshot showing 2 accounts with twice the debt than was the case prior to the BT.  Now, I wouldn't think this would constitute a 30 point drop... but without knowing anything about your profile it could be possible.