Score Watch Alert-Increase of 2400%

[runNL8]

I got a score watch alert from EQ, my FICO dropped 3pts. This is what the alert said, "Your HOUSEHOLD BANK account balance has increased by 2400% from $0 to $7". WTF?!?!? My CL is $900 and and now I have a $0 bal, but when it was reported to EQ I had a bal of $7. What is going on here?????

[haulingthescoreup]

It's always fun with these. Since you can't properly calculate a percentage increase from $0, they come up with these wacko numbers.

I think that HSBC reports the balance on your card on the last business day of the month, rather than on your statement date. Did you have a $7 balance at some point?

[runNL8]

yep, I had a $7.95 bal. I don't get why my score would drop though? I have a CL of $900. My UTL is only .0088333333 on this card.

[haulingthescoreup]

How many accounts, including mortgages and loans, reported a balance? If you had more accounts with balances than usual, that might have done it.

There also might have been something else going on. I have a decent amount of faith in the list of negative factors on screen 2 of the reports, but the reasons that come with scorewatch alerts can be pretty weird.

[Anonymous]

haulingthescoreup... I think something is going on with scorewatch period...! I'll see a usual jump of 8 or 11 points here and there. For the last week I started getting bizarre notices my score increased by 41 points and then the next day oh sorry it decreased by 41 points. I didn't pay any attention to it after the decrease until they sent another email you score is up by 37. I said ok I'm going to find out what is going on so I paid for a scorepower report on the spot. Go figure it wasn't the score listed in the email and oh stupid me did a minor app spree last 2 weeks thinking my score was higher than it was...Now I know better and won't be doing that again. Of course I emailed customer service with screen prints and never heard back from them...

Message Edited by ash4557 on 05-17-2008 03:34 AM

[haulingthescoreup]

ash, whenever your EQ score starts going up and down by the exact amount, I worry about a split file. Part of your file falls off and either does or doesn't get counted with the rest, so the score varies. Alternatively, one portion of your file gets counted one time, and the other portion is counted the other.

Do you happen to have score reports for both the high and low scores? If not, compare the latest report to one from a month or so back. Line up the account pages, and see if both reports show the same number of accounts, exactly.

You get a better indication if you have one report for the +41 and another for the -41, but that gets expensive. But do take a look at your account lists for the last 2 or 3 reports, and see if anything has disappeared.

Split files are an EQ problem, not a ScoreWatch problem. I think EQ is closed on the weekends, unless you have their monitoring service, but call on Monday. They might be able to see something on their end, even if you don't have a report with missing accounts.

[Anonymous]

I received this one today:

account balance has increased by 94800% $2 to about $1500

[Anonymous]

Ok Haulingthescoreup, Here we go I logged into my email this morning and saw the score watch. Score Watch alert/Changes to your FICO® Score Your FICO® score has gone up to 659 on May 19, 2008. This alert was caused by a new account added to my report. You were saying to compare the reports when a change is trigered. The thing is I wanted to compare score alerts so I went directly to equifax and signed up to monitor changes. The thing is yesterday I got the same email from EQ about a new account added but no score change. 618 Is Your FICO® score as of May 19, 2008 I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, at least I know now not to go on an app spree based on the score alerts. I thought I had a better change at getting a Lowes card with a 659 but it was probably actually 618 and of course I didn't get it...This mystery is driving me crazy. I have subscribed to scorewatch for awhile now and I have never seen a see-saw effect on my fico in a matter of days like this...!

Message Edited by ash4557 on 05-20-2008 11:13 PM

[Anonymous]

This seems to be off topic about Credit Cards. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Good point, maestro. Moving to Understanding FICO Scoring.

So ash, the latest change was for that same 41-point figure again? I kind of lost track of the sequence there. Again, you need to have a score report for both the high and low scores, because it sounds like there is at least one account that keeps popping on and off.

When you go to the ScoreWatch screen and click on the FICO score history tab (the middle one.) You can click on "more info" for each date that shows that you received a score alert, and that will bring up the actual alert. There you can see exactly what account was added, etc. Can you tell from the alerts what is happening each time you have this score swing?