Fico scores dropped heavily when I allows gold card to report

[Patient957]

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@AndySoCal wrote:

@SRT4kid93  On the Amex card have you paid the balance in full each month or have you used the pay over time option on this card? I ask there was a post on this forum not sure I could find it or not. Where the poster had an Amex charge card and th poster used the pay over time option. The option the bottom line is AMEXconverted the card from a charge card to a credit card. The charge card limit and credit limit were not the same. The credit card limit was significantly smaller.

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@SRT4kid93 wrote:

 Obviously it wasn't utilization related as the gold card doesn't have utilization. And it got reported as a $0 balance right after that as well. 

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This $0 balance reporting rules out utilization on the Amex as a possible cause.  A$0 balance is always 0% utilization.

Edit to add: whatever happened here has nothing to do with the Amex.  I think we've established at least that much upthread.  As to what the real cause is... Good luck.

[AndySoCal]

@Patient957 @SRT4kid93 @On a credit report pick a bureau what is reported for the Amex good card in the filed where you see Installemnt Revolving etc? Per the original post the problem started when you allowed Amex to report with a 2400 balance.

[Patient957]

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@AndySoCal wrote:

@Patient957 @SRT4kid93 @On a credit report pick a bureau what is reported for the Amex good card in the filed where you see Installemnt Revolving etc? Per the original post the problem started when you allowed Amex to report with a 2400 balance.

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Yes, but it seems to have been a mere coincidence, with no causal link.  The points were lost at the same time the Amex reported a $2400 balance, but there's no reason to belive that the Amex reporting or the $2400 balance caused the point loss.  If the points lost had been caused by the balance, they would have returned when the balance reported zero, but they did not. 

We're missing a critical piecie of informaiton needed to solve this.  If I recall correctly, we're talking about 78 points here.  In my view, it's likely we're dealing with some kind of derogatory account, perhaps an account with late payments that had been removed and reappeared.  This is the kind of thing that could explain 78 points.    The OP hasn't seen this on their report, but perhaps they are just not looking in the right place.

[SRT4kid93]

There are 2 problems with the theory of the derogatory account "disappearing and reappearing" 

1) the only derogatory info on my profile is a well aged 30 day late. 4 years old. I don't see any way a 4 year old 30 day late would still be causing a 78 point loss. I don't think that's even possible. 

2) if it had disappeared and re appeared my score would have shot up and then back down. Settling at its original level. 

so for example my score was at 756 before the drop. Using the disappearing theory, It would have shot up to say 800 when the account "disappeared" and then fell back down to 756. 

but it just dropped, if anything, that would be evidence of a new derogatory showing up. But I know for a fact this didn't happen. 

I've given up on trying to figure out what happened. I've accepted that I lost the points and they aren't coming back any time soon. It was very difficult for me to accept this. It took me a while.  But I finally came to terms with my situation. 

[AndySoCal]

@Patient957  I never said it was the balance nor did I imply it was a derogatory reporting  on the card. My JC Penney card on the credit report has a loan type of Charge Account.  The card will affect my credit utilization because of the account type is not  the account type of a charge card. A true charge card has no interest rates because the terms of the card is balance in full each month. Some of the Amex cards can be a charge card  and or credit card depending on how the card has been used and the  payment of the card.  If the payment of time option is used you made the card a credit card and the account type is revolving. Amex will report a credit limit.  The NPSL no longer applies. 

[SRT4kid93]

@AndySoCal 

I've never heard that "using the pot feature suddenly makes Amex report your charge card as a credit card and makes them Report a limit"

But regardless. I've always paid the balance in full. 

[Patient957]

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@AndySoCal wrote:

@Patient957  I never said it was the balance...

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Fair enough.  I must have misunderstood, because I thought that's what you were saying.

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nor did I imply it was a derogatory reporting  on the card. . 

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Never suggested you did.  I'm saying that I think it likely has to do with derogatory reporting, not that you do.

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My JC Penney card on the credit report has a loan type of Charge Account.  The card will affect my credit utilization because of the account type is not  the account type of a charge card. A true charge card has no interest rates because the terms of the card is balance in full each month. Some of the Amex cards can be a charge card  and or credit card depending on how the card has been used and the  payment of the card.  If the payment of time option is used you made the card a credit card and the account type is revolving. Amex will report a credit limit.  The NPSL no longer applies. 

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Okay, got it.  But I still don't understand your theory of how this relates to the original problem of the lost 78 points.  

[SRT4kid93]

@Patient957 

to me, there's only two possibilities that are even remotely possible 

1) for some reason, the late payment on my account never affected my score and then some giant coincidence when I added my AMEX the late payment suddenly started to affect my score.

I've never heard of this happening, especially because it was on my credit report the entire time Also I'm not sure a four year-old 30 day late payment would equate to almost 80 points

2) it was the new account getting added/score card reassignment. despite the fact that I didn't cross over any age metric thresholds and I was not put into a new revolver status

[Thomas_Thumb]

The primary culprits for a 78 point drop that persists month to month are "new" derogatories of some type such as: a 30 day late that surfaces and lists a recent DOFD, some unpaid account showing a recent charge off or a collection reporting. It is possible for such an account to exist on a split file and not show on a summary report.

CAPTOOL had a derog on TU only that cycled on/off and his score went up/down on a monthly basis like a bouncing ball. His EQ and EX files were clean and those scores were stable at a high level. 

Again, if the OP's drop remains stable month over month the score drop points to a permanent account status change (whether showing on a report or not). 

Again, it is important to compare score against Fico scores based on the other 2 CRA files. If those scores did not drop or dropped only slightly but rebounded; there is likely a difference in account reporting. Also the order of listed negative reason statements can be telling. Is the rank order of codes the same on all 3 CRA scores? 

An AMEX npsl charge card doesnot have a credit limit. I always PIF and don't use POT but my card says I have $35k available for POT. That being said, I can put over $50k on the card. The card is not considered as a revolver and I get penalized for "no recent revolving activity" if it is my only card reporting a balance.

The older Fico mortgage models looked at current monthly balance vs highest monthly balance to calculate a psuedo card utilization which was scored. If CB exceeded old HB then HB resets to match current CB and card UT would be 100%. Even in those situations my mortgage Ficos would "only" drop 15-30 points depending on CRA.

A single card reporting even 100% UT is not going to drop score even close to 78 points unless the file is thin and aggregate UT jumps to above 30% and may even need to exceed 50%.

* Take a look at recent thread documenting utilization vs score data points on this forum.

Also, if high AMEX utilization were the culprit for the initial 78 point drop,  reporting a $0 card balance should eliminate the Fico 8 score offset.