One month drop of 40 points

[Anonymous]

My credit files at all three bureaus are frozen due to multiple attempts to steal my identity.  No late payments and credit cards are paid in full each month.  I did not close nor open any new credit.  Not aware of any inquiries made on my credit.  Yet my FICO score dropped 40 points in one month.  I see my FICO score when I log in to my Citi Card credit card account.  What else could account for the drop?

There was one incident.  Someone used my SSN, Name and Address with a bogus email, phone #, credit card and Bank account (these last four items were not mine) to open a Paypal account and charge $1800.  I received a letter from a collection agency as a result.  After speaking to Paypal and reporting it as fraud, they called off the collection agency.  Could this incident affect my FICO score even though Paypal never did an inquiry before granting credit?

[Anonymous]

I think you need to see an actual copy of your credit report to see if the collection account is on there.  If it is, then you will need to work on getting it removed. I would guess it is showing up if no other variables changed in your report.

[EAJuggalo]

You state that your CC's are PIF, do you do that before or after the statement cuts?  Since the lender is reporting the statement balance to the CRA's you'd be getting dinged on Utilization if it's after.  I lost 80 points in one month last year due to Utilization changing.

[Anonymous]

The balance on my two credit cards are about the same each month, unless I travel.  I pay them about 5 days before the due date.   Contacted collection agency and they claim nothing was put on my credit reports.  Since my llast free annual report was November, they are sending me current copies of my report.

I thought I would be ok with 7-year fraud alerts and frozen credit files, since I have no plans to get new credit.  But perhaps paying for credit monitoring and scores (and repair) would make more sense.

[EAJuggalo]

  I use Credit Check Total and they give me access to an updated experian report daily.  There is a $1 one week trial that allows you to see all 3 bureau's reports and scores.  What else is on your report?  AAoA?  It's possible to see that kind of drop from Utilization on one card even though the difference is a small amount, if you hit one of the break points with a thin file.