Puzzling Equifax Drop

[jones2929]

Just a month ago, all three of my scores were over 700.  I had a couple of inquiries relating to a refinancing, and one of the balances of my credit cards went up $1500.  Everything else was the same.  When I checked again in a month, the Equifax score was the same, Transunion had gone down 4 points, but Equifax went down 30 points.  Do inquiries have that much of an impact?  I was sort of shocked.

[llecs]

Are you looking at a FICO score?

Where your before and after scores from the same source?

Did any new account or accounts report as a result of those apps?

In short, inquiries do not cause drops like that. Most of my inquiries resulted in zero FICO change, and those that impacted were in the low single digits. I think the most I lost was maybe 7 pts, though I've seen up to 10 or so from others.

[jones2929]

Same source - FICO scores from same potential lender for refinancing. The only thing else was the credit card balance went up 15%. Maybe that was it, but it seems like a big drop.

[llecs]

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@jones2929 wrote:
Same source - FICO scores from same potential lender for refinancing. The only thing else was the credit card balance went up 15%. Maybe that was it, but it seems like a big drop.

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That can potentially do it. I've personally have lost low double digits when adding a small balance to a previously $0 balance, especially when FICO added that annoying red flag for having too many TLs with a balance.