Fico score

[Anonymous]

Why does your score goes down when you paid your credit or a loan down or off 

[thornback]

FICO dings you for not using your revolving (credit card) accounts.  So if all of your cards are reporting a $0 balance, you lose points.  FICO likes to see usage - but low usage.  Let it report something greater than $0,  but less than 8.9% of the credit limit.  That way you don't get dinged for no usage, and you don't get dinged for high usage. 

FICO dings you for not having any installment loans (mix of credit is 10% of your score).  Paying a loan off early, while great for your personal finances,  sucks for your FICO score.  If this was your only installment loan, and now it's paid / closed -  it means you no longer have an active loan reporting positive activity - so you lose points for a lack of credit mix. 

[Anonymous]

Credit shock. It’ll go right back up in 30 days. Mine dropped 50 pts when I paid off a mortgage; it was back in less than a month.

[Anonymous]

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Credit shock. It’ll go right back up in 30 days. Mine dropped 50 pts when I paid off a mortgage; it was back in less than a month.

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That doesn't make much sense.  If it came back in less than a month, it would mean that your mortgage was your only open installment loan (hence the score drop when closed) but if your points all came back it means that you added another installment loan to your file in less than a month, which reported a balance of 8.9% or less of the original balance.  Is that the case?  Also, the process I described above usually only accounts for 30 points, 35 max, so if you saw a 50 point swing I'm thinking another factor was involved here.  Also, where are you getting your score(s) from that you saw go down and then up 50 points?