Is Experian the most 0 balance sensitive bureau?

[Anonymous]

I was so excited my TU finally went past 750 a few days ago, after my balance went from 2% to 0% that I completely forgot how much EX hates that. Got a notification today about a 15 point drop for a 0 revolving balance 😐 If it would go up 15 points in a couple days when my next card reports I would be perfectly fine with it but it never gets back more than 5-10 points. Whenever I got the 3 bureau reports, EX was the only one stating no balances as a negative on my score... I feel it's an excessive amount of points for not in the least irresponsible credit management. If I had a huge amount of available credit with constant zero utilization for >3months it might make more sense. But with 8k total credit and 0 balance ~4x/yr...? Of course, I'm just venting, not trying to pretent I'm any type of financial professional 😆 I think I finally made my mind up as to which card to leave a balance on. Too bad EX didn't wanna wait for me...

[Anonymous]

I don't know that EX is any more sensitive to reporting all $0 balances compared to TU/EQ in terms of a greater scoring penalty.  Typically the drop is 15-20 points for doing this, so you're right there.  Without seeing what happens to your TU/EQ scores from the same event there's no way to know on your file which score would see the biggest hit.  The good news is that utilization has no memory, so the moment you report a non-zero balance on a revolver your lost points will come right back.

[Stugotsv10]

we talking about overall or on a single card? 0% on all cards? 

[Anonymous]

0 balance overall. And that's what I was saying, that I never retrieve the same amount of points I lost, unfortunately... We'll see tomorrow when Amex reports a balance. I'll refresh my 3 bureau report. For now, EX has always been lower than the other 2. I had a 0 balance(total) a few months ago and the next month I got 7 points back after losing 15...  

I'll report tomorrow or the day after with the results on all bureaus. I only have 3 accounts reporting the same on all bureaus, 15 months AoOA with no negatives and about the same amount of inquiries(1-3)so there shouldn't be a big difference between the scores.

[Anonymous]

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@AnonymousAnd that's what I was saying, that I never retrieve the same amount of points I lost, unfortunately...  

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I think you're understanding of utilization/scoring is a bit off here.  It's impossible to not get back the same amount of points if your profile returns to the exact same state as it was prior.  Just to assign numbers to the discussion, say you have 5 credit cards.  Their reported balances are $0, $0, $0, $0 and $100.  If you pay the $100 to $0 and it reports, you're now at all $0 balances reported.  You'll lose X (say, 15-20) number of points for doing this.  If next reporting you were to take that same credit card and report a $100 balance, you'd get back exactly X points.  This is assuming all other factors are remaining exactly the same on your file.  If you don't see exactly X points come back, it's because something else changed on your file.  Again, utilization has no memory at all and is a single point in time snapshot.  If the snapshot is the same both times, the score will be the same both times.

[Anonymous]

Experian went up 16 points after the balance went from 0 to 2%. Same percent as last month but different amount(recent cli also reported)~$100 more.

736-2% balance
723-0% balance
739-2% balance
It would be impossible for my profile to be exactly the same month to month with credit line increases and new accounts and such...Still building from scratch and trying to learn and expand. I was just curious what their algorithms were/are. And only slightly(and temporarely) annoyed with the results 😛 I think several times/month score updates is a bad thing for me...Probably should stick to once/month