More Problems with Experian Score

[Anonymous]

Today, I encountered the latest in a series of problems that I've had with Experian. I've essentially been gardening my credit since June 2018, and haven't made any new inquiries or opened new credit accounts at all. I've made all payments on-time and have a pretty low credit utilization of now 3%. My EX score didn't move an inch for a few months but, at the end of last month, it finally budged by two points. It budged again by two points in the first week of December (635-->639), so it looked like things were on the rise. I should point out that, in the same time, my TU and EQ scores went up much more significantly, but it is what it is...

Low and behold, I check my score this morning, and my EX score went down by 11 points suddenly. Experian's webside did not provide a reason why, but I know that I have no new late payments, no new inquiries, and the last thing to be reported to EX was that one of my cards, which previously carried a zero balance, again reported a zero balance yesterday, for this month (I used the card, but just paid it off before the report date - 5/6 of my cards report a zero balance now). Other than that, my utilization % dropped from 4% to 3%, and I finished paying off one of my student loan accounts at the end of November (that appeared on the report weeks ago). My EQ and TU scores appear to have not moved. 

I am not too incredibly bothered by this as I am gardening anyway, but I am just struggling to understand why my score would drop suddenly after months of good behavior and no late payments, inquiries, or high utilization. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I finished paying off one of my student loan accounts at the end of November (that appeared on the report weeks ago).

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What was the "installment utilization" of this paid off loan last month, and what is the utilization  of the remaining loans not paid off?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Today, I encountered the latest in a series of problems that I've had with Experian.

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The first fundamental understanding that you need to have is that you aren't having a problem with Experian.  Your score comes from the FICO algorithm which simply uses the data from Experian (or whatever bureau).  The data [your CR] is either correct, or it isn't.  If you're looking at your Experian credit report and everything is accurate and looks good, there is no problem related to Experian.  Even if something is wrong and should possibly be disputed, 99 times out of 100 your gripe would be the the lender that reported the information incorrectly, not Experian who simply compiles that data.

That being said, if your credit score changed it means that the credit report data used in generating that score changed.  What you need to do is what it sounds like you've started doing already, which is comparing your credit report data both before/after the score change.  In doing that you'll come up with a list of things that changed (could be 3 things, could be 10+ things) and based on that list we can start to help you understand which one(s) may be responsible for the score change you are seeing.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, I am actually not sure. I know that the loan amounts are not very significant - it was about $7k total spread across 5 acounts before I paid in November. The account that I paid off was the one with the lowest balance, measured in the hundreds. After I paid it off and it closed, I still owed about $6,300ish on the remaining four. One of them, for example, is now 1,800 remaining out of originally 2,500, and another is 2,200 remaining out of originally 2,500. I think I orignally owed close to $9,000 total. 

When that update appeared on the report, the score did not move.

Sorry that I don't have exact figures, I usually just set up auto pay on these accounts and let them do their thing... 

[Anonymous]

I would suggest looking toward number (and percentage) of accounts with a balance. 

The installment loan utilization change in paying off 1 of 5 accounts IMO likely isn't a factor related to scoring here.

[Anonymous]

I say that the problem is with Experian because Experian tends to be the only outlier when it comes to my credit score. This has been the case for a long time, and so I've done the whole pull and compare credit reports from each bureau thing many times. There are differences, and I'm aware of them, but there's nothing that would explain this point drop - certainly nothing recent. In fact, the score should increase when they are corrected.

I could go into to detail about my past problems with EX in particular, but i dont think that's necessary now. I just want to understand why my score dropped is all!

To be clear, since July (when a duplicate inquiry appeared on EX - already disputed and set to be removed but still on report for now), all of my reports have almost the same info, with the only difference being a slightly different AAoA - give or take a month or two.

[Anonymous]

I can understand your frustration if your EX score is lower than your others, but the fact still remains that this isn't a problem with Experian and score changes can only happen when there are changes to your credit report.  The FICO algorithm just uses the data from EX to produce a score.  If the score changed, the data changed.  It really is that simple.  What isn't always so simple is identifying what changed on the report.

[Anonymous]

Update: checked the score again this morning, and it looks like Experian has added the points back. Not sure what that was all about, but looks like it was resolved!

[Anonymous]

Experian does not add points back (or take points away).  All they do is compile data.  That data is put through a FICO scoring model to generate a score.  If your score increased, it means your Experian report changed again and it sounds like it returned back to its original state prior to your score drop.  Are you able to identify the change that happened and then switched back?

[Anonymous]

I get daily updates to my EX Fico score. It is hard to tell what changes occured at what time as Experian lists all updates as occuring at the beginning of the month, regardless of when they actually update... So I have to estimate the dates based on other reports. As far as I can tell, the only thing that might have changed is one of my cards (my daily use card) updated, and its reported balance changed from $122 (0.3% utilization) to $0. That's a positive, but i doubt that would lead to an 11 point increase, especially when my cards usually report 0 anyway.

The last change before the point drop was one of my cards reported a zero balance, the same balance it had the month before.

I found these details from going through the info in the report. Experian did not send me alerts about these changes. The only alerts they sent me, quite literally, was score down 11 points yesterday morning, and score up 11 points this morning. Bizarre