I know I should never be baffled at what appears to be reasons for score changes ... but ... I'm human. I understand that my scores are high enough that there is no real worry here. But ... this is all about comprehending FICO scoring ... whether the scores are high or mediocre ... or painfully low.
A few days ago, I needed an updated report (and just "wanted" a score.) I prefer the detail provided directly from the CRAs, so I pulled directly from EQ and got a ScorePower Report/Score.
Should I assume that the FICO score provided by ScorePower is comparable to the FICO score provided through MyFico? This is what I ended up with:
December 13, 2007
EQ MyFico 795
February 16, 2008
EQ ScorePower 780
The earlier MyFico report had four "positive" reasons for my score. The subsequent ScorePower only had three out of the four reasons that MyFico previously had.
The missing positive ingredient? "You've shown recent use of credit cards."
MyFico showed four accounts with balances:
- Auto Installment
- Mortgage
- My Chase Freedom World card listed as "Open" with no CL reported
- DH's Chase Freedom World card listed as "Revolving" with a CL reported (It appears to report as "open" through EQ, but labeled as "revolving" because the CL is now reported.)
ScorePower showed three accounts with balances:
- Auto Installment
- Mortgage
- DH's Chase Freedom World card listed here as "Open" but the CL is reported (It is interesting that the balance on this card is reported in the ScorePower Account summary as "revolving" even though the account detail shows it to be "open." )
Total balances and utilization percentages (2% down from 3%) are lower on ScorePower. There are no late payments ... ever. Recent account opening has actually aged and there are no newer additions.
Now ... obviously FICO wants me to be sure to have at least two "revolving" accounts reporting a balance ... but with the mess with the reporting on Signature / World cards you never know whether cards you consider to be revolving are going to be counted as revolving or not.
It amazes me that the ScorePower report shows DH's card as "Open" ... but apparently because a CL is reported, they translate that into "revolving" and use it for revolving utilization.
This system where the CCCs can report data to the CRAs and that can apparently be changed by the CRAs and subsequently "tweaked" by others generating consumer reports, makes this impossible to understand and draw reliable conclusions from. 
