I paid down balances, credit utilization went down significantly...and my score went DOWN (not up)

[Anonymous]

I've been working on improving my score in order to get to make my mortgage refi rate better.  After 2 months of paying things down, my score is going down...not up.  My credit utilixzation went from 90% to 30% and my score DROPPED BY 10pts. Is it me or is that totally the opposite of what should be happening?  Advice?

[Gunnar419]

By any chance, have you also paid off any installment loans (car, personal, mortgage)? Doing that will nearly always drop a score, sometimes in a big way. Dropping cc utilization shouldn't. Maybe if you post details of your paydowns somebody will have a clearer insight.

[Gunnar419]

Also, are you looking at your real FICO score or something like Credit Karma or Credit Sesame? Those free scores are at least semi worthless and can be prone to wild swings.

Congrats on paying down that big cc util, though!

[Anonymous]

I'm in my real My FICO score.  I wish I could upload a screen shot.  One of the accounts was a final payment to a line of credit.  So, I kind of get that ding.  But the other was TransUnion dinging me 6pts when I paid down a regular credit card from a balance of $692 to $211 and credit utilization went from 90+% down to 30%.  I paid down another card that was at close to $2900 and was at 90% utilization down to under $1500 and saw no change in my score based on that.

[redbeard]

The way MyFico reports the alerts, especially on TransUnion, is very confusing.  What they report in the alert is what caused the alert to trigger, not necessarily what caused the score to change.

I highly recommend reviewing your actual reports (even on Credit Karma), rather then focusing on scores for the moment.  Odds are, other things have changed as well.

Also, do you have other cards at 90%?  I don't know if it makes a difference on how many cards report at 90%+, or if the penalty is all in having 1 (or more) report that high.

Dan

[Anonymous]

Dan,

It seemed like it might have been an issue with the ay they reported it.  It's revolving credit on both of those cards.  They are the only 2 credit cards I have open.  

The one I just paid off was a fixed payment schedule with AMEX.  I'm also trying to get that corrected.  They were reporting me at 120 days even though I had been in a payment agreement for the last 12 months and made 12 consecutive on-time payments.  I submitted the agreement and payment history through Equifax's online dispute system but haven;t seen a correction yet.  Does Transunion have an online dispute system as well?

[Anonymous]

So what are your Fico scores, credit limits, balances etc. What's your approach to credit?