Seems a bit extreme for all accounts reporting zero. If thats what happened. If not. Go over your report. Something else happened.
@UnshavenWookie wrote:So can someone help explain this? Used my citi double cash card on something small just to make sure it doesn't get closed for inactivity. Citi reported to the bureau's before payment went through, which was fine because credit utilization was less than 1%. No score change that month. Then payment goes through long before any late/missed payment. A month goes by and the next score update comes through... BAM. Experian -53 points specifically for "account balance changed by -$9".
Just to be clear this doesn't break me as I don't have any upcoming loan/mortgage applications, and I'm done with card applications for 2022. I'm also expecting (hoping for) some kind of score course correction/bounce back in the next few updates. That said I'd like to know if this is common and what the reasoning is so I can avoid stumbling into a similar situation the next time I am preparing for a loan request.
Also it may be worth noting it didn't seem to have any effect on my Non-FICO scores (Experian App, card accounts that use Experian to produce simulated score).
I can assure you that there is no cause and effect relationship between paying the Citi card balance and a 53 point drop. I wonder where you're getting your information from.
If you reported all zero balances, then you would likely have sustained the 'all zero penalty', but that wouldn't account for 53 points.
I really doubt this has anything to do with the "no cards reporting" penalty. OP didn't gain 50 points when the DoubleCash reported the $9, score didn't change, so there are already other cards reporting balances.
I do agree that something else on the credit reports was updated, to cause the score drop.
This just happened to me as well. My Experian dropped 60 points after paying down my AMEX.
