My score arbitrarily goes back and forth a few points. There is no rhyme nor reason to it.

[burntcrispynurse]

I live a very stable life.  My house is paid for and I took out a reverse mortgage a few months back when I started collecing social security.  I have a few small investments which also provide income.

I have one credit card with a 20k credit limit.  I zero it every month.  Last week there was about $2600 owed on it;  I paid it in full and now have added  $200-$300 to my new balance. (So I only owe $300 at most to zero it out again.  I've had this credit card for more than 20 years and have never been late.  Not once.  Never.  My balances always goes high by the end of the month followed by low the next week.  I pay my bills as they arrive rather than by their due date.  If I'm billed on Monday, they're paid on Tuesday.  Admittedly, it seems to take three days for the electronic payment to make it from my bank to the credit card company (another scam?).

I pay my house insurance, taxes, groceries, gas, etc..... essentially everything with that credit card so I receive reward points back: pennies from heaven.

So how does FICO respond?  My credit  score goes from 788 to 791 to 788 to 792 to 788 to 791, to ad nauseum.  My negatives are that I don't use enough credit and that my accounts aren't old enough.  What does it take?

I am highly suspicious it just changes a few points each time to justify my continued subscription to this service.  Am I the only one?

[Revelate]

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@burntcrispynurse wrote:

I live a very stable life.  My house is paid for and I took out a reverse mortgage a few months back when I started collecing social security.  I have a few small investments which also provide income.

I have one credit card with a 20k credit limit.  I zero it every month.  Last week there was about $2600 owed on it;  I paid it in full and now have added  $200-$300 to my new balance. (So I only owe $300 at most to zero it out again.  I've had this credit card for more than 20 years and have never been late.  Not once.  Never.  My balances always goes high by the end of the month followed by low the next week.  I pay my bills as they arrive rather than by their due date.  If I'm billed on Monday, they're paid on Tuesday.  Admittedly, it seems to take three days for the electronic payment to make it from my bank to the credit card company (another scam?).

I pay my house insurance, taxes, groceries, gas, etc..... essentially everything with that credit card so I receive reward points back: pennies from heaven.

So how does FICO respond?  My credit  score goes from 788 to 791 to 788 to 792 to 788 to 791, to ad nauseum.  My negatives are that I don't use enough credit and that my accounts aren't old enough.  What does it take?

I am highly suspicious it just changes a few points each time to justify my continued subscription to this service.  Am I the only one?

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Your one credit card wouldn't happen to be from Chase would it?

If so, Chase is reporting a statement balance and then zeroing it out which would explain the up / down behavior.  If it is that, which one is the higher score, with the statement balance, or at $0 balance?  Algorithm is a little strange with few revolvers (call it less than 3 cards give or take) though with your profile I wouldn't go opening up things just for FICO, 790 is a pretty score indeed and effectively the same as a 850 even with how the market is setup.

If it's any other lender I don't have an easy explanation; which bureau are you seeing this on?

I will state in general, if you have a stable financial and credit life, you possibly don't need to be paying for subscription services (unless you want to for whatever reason); just reviewing your EQ/TU reports weekly on CK and monthly on either credit.com or Experian's own site, is probably good enough for most people who just want to make certain nothing stupid shows up on their reports (identity fraud or what not).  If testing things in the FICO algorithm wasn't a hobby of mine I wouldn't pay for scores at all at this point, other than my once annual New Year see where I'm at for $60 or whatever from myFICO 3B report.

[burntcrispynurse]

No, it's not Chase.  I am not comfortable naming it on the internet but I am comfortable saying Chase isn't it.  I've never banked with them.  As for the credit bureau: it's TransUnion.

[Anonymous]

Others have reported their scores fluctuating up or down a few points here and there for no real reason.  I would think it has to do with your changing utilization though.  If you go from a low reported utilization to $0 reported, I would think you'd lose more than a couple of points... more like 15 since at that moment in time you aren't showing revolving utilization.  If you had another card or two it would be easier to control the balances (allowing just 1 to report a small balance) but it seems you've done fine for yourself having just 1 card for 20 years, so no need to reinvent the wheel at this point.  You also seem to be in a stable place financially, having just taken out the reverse mortgage, so there's probably no need to maximize your scores at this point.  They could all drop 20-30 points right now and you'd still have scores capable of securing you the best products and rates, so no need to sweat it.

[burntcrispynurse]

Thanks.  I've been chasing my tail with this for a while.  It seemed a clear cut case of "you can't get there from here."

[Revelate]

What's the stated alert trigger?

[pipeguy]

I follow your model to some extent, generally paying as soon as a charge posts on most cards - I do carry a balance on a few cards at 0% promotional rates and I've got 24X the cards you have and 18X the available credit (not counting the wife's accounts) my TU and EQ scores move a little depending on the week, coule of points like yours, for some reason EX which is my lowest score is very stable, goes up a point or three every 4 months or so (scores are high 700's with EX mid-700's - TU bounces over 800 every couple of months). 

Bottom line is there are ways to get your scores higher, adding a second or third card, adding an installment loan, etc but the real answer is "why bother?"  Anything over 760 is the same as 850 to lenders, other than the ego part for your enjoyment .