New Inquiry Raised FICO Score?

[mmajer4211]

Just trying to understand and get a little insight into this. I applied for PayPal credit, was declined, but my FICO score went up by 16 points because of the new inquiry. Seems like the opposite of what it should have done but I have no idea. It was a HP on my Equifax which only had 1 previous inquiry. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!

[gorgon]

A hard pull generally drops your score 2-4 points. Something else changed on your credit profile that triggered the 16 point jump.

[mmajer4211]

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@gorgon wrote:

A hard pull generally drops your score 2-4 points. Something else changed on your credit profile that triggered the 16 point jump.

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That's exactly what I thought but I checked everything and nothing changed. Plus, the alert I received specifically stated: "a new inquiry was added to your credit report" and lists Synchrony as the company. The only other thing I can think of is I applied and was approved for a Cap 1 account last Thursday but it still isn't reporting. It shows the inquiry on all three bureaus for Cap 1 but nothing else. Maybe that has something to do with it? 

[gorgon]

Every month things can change on reports that aren't immediately obvious, and won't trigger an alert. The most common being accounts aging to 6 months, 12 months, etc...

Sometimes it can be very hard to pinpoint what actually dropped/raised a score.

[Anonymous]

Things like Inquiries aging >6 months or >1 year or your Average Age Of Accounts could have crossed a threshold >1 year, >2 years... will have a positive effect on your score and won't be obvious or necessarily in a myFICO alert.

[Anonymous]

Agree with gorgon - there was movement of some sort elsewhere that overcompensated for the inquiry impact.

[Anonymous]

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@mmajer4211 wrote:

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Plus, the alert I received specifically stated: "a new inquiry was added to your credit report" 

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The alert doesn't state though that your score change was due to the alert.  This is an incredibly common misconception on this forum.  The alert reason is the alert reason and that's it... it does not have to be the reason for the score change.  You're just provided with a new score at the time of any alert, but the change in the score often times has nothing to do with the alert.

It's 100% impossible for a HP to raise a score even a single FICO point, so it defintely can't bump someone up 16 points.  An inquiry can however lower a score (say) 4-6 points, so if your net gain was 16 points you're actually looking for something that raised your score 20-22 points.  A common unalertable event that could cause this is the age of one's youngest account crossing from 11 months to 12 months.  There are many others, though.