How is this possible? I paid down one of my credit cards to 1% utilization - Score Dropped!

[Anonymous]

I’m debating on trying this as well. Possibly letting $800 report the first statement, then pif the second statement, followed by hitting the love button.
So far....
$5289 spent in the first 20 days.
30 transactions.
$1576 week one payment.
$1143 week two payment.
$2570 pending, will pay when posts.
this will be the pace +/-
I wonder if CapOne will throw me another bone soon?

[Anonymous]

I just paid everything to zero before my one card will report in a few days with a 3,800 balance out of 81,500 available and got socked with a 13 to 20 point drop......that really is not fair at all. This system is old, outdated, too confusing and needs a major overhaul.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I just paid everything to zero before my one card will report in a few days with a 3,800 balance out of 81,500 available and got socked with a 13 to 20 point drop......that really is not fair at all. This system is old, outdated, too confusing and needs a major overhaul.

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It makes total sense to me because FICO Score 8 has no memory when it comes to utilization and this is a GOOD THING.  If it had memory, your score would be penalized for every recent past high utilization period.

So when you go to zero cards being used, FICO Score 8 has to consider you as a person who doesn't actually use credit cards, and that's a penalty for risk scoring.  A person who uses credit cards responsibly is a low risk, versus a person who has credit but doesn't use it is a higher risk because of the unknown factor.

Since you know how to play the game, just play it the way the rules are designed.  You can't hate the game if you understand it.