FICO score dropped 7 points but nothing has changed in 1 year with usage or on-time payments

[oldrocker1967]

Hi Everyone:

Hope somebody could explain this, as it is upsetting even if it were a drop of 1 point.

Every month I use the two credit cards I have and spend 1 percent of the credit line and pay in full when the bills come.

Every month I pay a bit more on the car lease loan.

I have not been a minute late on any obligation in 10 years, if not more.

Normally the only down-turn is when I pay off the car lease (every 3 years) and lease another. The score drops.

The formula I have used has worked well as I was 801 on FICO the past few months until today.

With the drop it placed me from Exceptional to very good.

What did I do wrong? I have never deviated from the above (there are no other obligations) .

In FICO's mind something freaked out, but why today and not all this time?

Thank you for any help and all be well and safe,

[GZG]

---

@oldrocker1967 wrote:

Hi Everyone:

Hope somebody could explain this, as it is upsetting even if it were a drop of 1 point.

Every month I use the two credit cards I have and spend 1 percent of the credit line and pay in full when the bills come.

Every month I pay a bit more on the car lease loan.

I have not been a minute late on any obligation in 10 years, if not more.

Normally the only down-turn is when I pay off the car lease (every 3 years) and lease another. The score drops.

The formula I have used has worked well as I was 801 on FICO the past few months until today.

With the drop it placed me from Exceptional to very good.

What did I do wrong? I have never deviated from the above (there are no other obligations) .

In FICO's mind something freaked out, but why today and not all this time?

Thank you for any help and all be well and safe,

---

7 points from 801 to 794 is a rounding error and not any indictment that you did anything wrong

FICO scoring isn't completely intuitive and there are things are that are good, responsible credit behavior but you lose points in your FICO score, points you will surely get back as your credit ages

without knowing the exact differences between your credit reports between the score changes, it would be impossible to tell what exactly caused the score drop.

two guesses though: 

when your credit reaches a certain age, your profile is now compared to older profiles and the score gets recalculated

typically your credit reports 1 out of your 2 cards having a balance, and now your credit report is reporting 0 or 2 of your credit cards having a balance. 

1/2 credit cards reporting a balance would be best for your score (having more than 3 cards would be ideal though), whereas 0/2 credit cards reporting a balance or 2/2 credit cards reporting a balance would be subject to a credit score penalty

really, don't worry about it. you're good.

if you want to list out all of your open accounts, we could tell you how to squeeze every last point out of your credit score, but it really doesn't matter. Pay your bills on time every month like you have been doing and you're all set.

[oldrocker1967]

Thank you for the reply.

The part that is still puzzling (upsetting as well going from Exceptional to Very Good) is the formula has always worked that I have been told to follow. Wouldn't the drop hurt if today I wanted to buy a house or a car?

The total amount of obligations that I have that report to the credit bureau are the 2 credit cards and a car payment. This is pretty standard for the past 40+ years.

I have always done the same thing. Pay the car payment every month on time (a bit more than required) and as for the credit cards, I buy something at the supermarket on Card A and then let's say a department store Card B. The totals are 1 percent of the credit limit.

The bill comes in and I pay 100 percent of it on-time.

Through the years, I have only been penalized (I find this to be an oxymoron) when I make my last car payment and lease something new. Although I met my obligation, the closing of the lease sees the scores drop (not only FICO) for several months.

In this case, it has been a year since the new lease and nothing changes with the amount of cards (have always used two) and the car payment (always have 1).

In theory if something freaked-out the system I would have thought it would have happened several times during the past 40+ years.

Thank you again for your response to the thread.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@oldrocker1967 wrote:

Hi Everyone:

Hope somebody could explain this, as it is upsetting even if it were a drop of 1 point.

Every month I use the two credit cards I have and spend 1 percent of the credit line and pay in full when the bills come.

Every month I pay a bit more on the car lease loan.

I have not been a minute late on any obligation in 10 years, if not more.

Normally the only down-turn is when I pay off the car lease (every 3 years) and lease another. The score drops.

The formula I have used has worked well as I was 801 on FICO the past few months until today.

With the drop it placed me from Exceptional to very good.

What did I do wrong? I have never deviated from the above (there are no other obligations) .

In FICO's mind something freaked out, but why today and not all this time?

Thank you for any help and all be well and safe,

---

You haven't given us enough information from which we could give you a possible answer to your question.

The only way to know is to look at your report from the day of the score change and the report from the day before, and to compare the data line by line. Most likely you don't know the exact date of the score change or the exact date of the data change, unless you subscribe to experian.com paid services which give you daily report and FICO score data.

[oldrocker1967]

I can only provide what I have stated, however I can't be the only individual that has posed this question.

If you had to semise as to what happened, what are your feelings?

I do not subscribe to any paid services but get notifcations from Experian any change up/down, which was today.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@oldrocker1967 wrote:

I can only provide what I have stated, however I can't be the only individual that has posed this question.

If you had to semise as to what happened, what are your feelings?

I do not subscribe to any paid services but get notifcations from Experian any change up/down, which was today.

---

Sorry, I don't have a clue.

[quickstep_knoll]

Did this just happen to you in Experian? I actually just noticed ... a 7 point drop ... with nothing changing.

I'm wondering if it could be a scoring model change. But given your scores, it really shouldn't make any material difference.

[FicoMike0]

Ditto  @GZG , 7 points isn't meaningful.

There is a penalty for too many accounts reporting a balance. There's another for all reporting zero.  With two accounts, the only no penalty situation is one reporting a small balance and the other reporting zero. The accounts only report once a month, usually on the statement dates.

If you use both cards each month and pay after the statement, you would frequently hit the too many reporting a balance penalty. If this bothers you, pick one card, and always pay it to zero a day or two before it posts.

[oldrocker1967]

This happened with FICO only (the drop of 7 points). The Transunion and Equifax remained the same.

Thank you.

[oldrocker1967]

Thanks for replying.

What is not being answered is why now the drop?

Since I use 1 percent of the balance each month the same time and pay both in full (the same date each month), if there is a penalty for zero balances (or any reason), you would think the score would be hurt consistantly.

Since there  were increases in the score June, August, September, and October 2024, there has to be something else not mentioned.

Most months are stable but in the last 8 months we had 4 increases, 3 stay the same, and 1 decrease with no deviation from what has been stated.