Score dropped 9 points!

[Anonymous]

I've been watching my scores daily on Experian. This morning I logged on and had a 9 point score drop. When I went through all my accounts to determine the cause, well....all my major credit cards are now reporting zero balance. However, I still have 2 store cards with balances and an AU charge card also with a balance. What gives?

[Anonymous]

It's possible that if only your store cards have reported balances and those cards aren't being "counted" by the FICO algorithm that you are being viewed as having no revolving credit use.  Do you have access to negative reason statements?  If you see the one saying, "no recent revolving credit use" or something similar, that would verify that this is the case.  This is one of the reasons why on this forum it is recommended that you use a major bank card (not a store card) to report a small balance.  I personally have used a store card (Lowe's) as my AZEO card in the past and did not see a scoring penalty (the store card "counted") so it seems this issue may vary from person to person and possibly from store card to store card.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the response. You are correct, I didn't see a reason for FICO 8, but FICO 8 BANKCARD is showing a penalty flag of "no recent credit card activity." Bummer! I'll have one major card report and see how that changes things. I was hopeful for an increase since I went from 12% to 5% aggregate utilization.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad you have that reason statement available to verify the issue here.  Letting one of your major credit cards report a balance will no doubt result in nice score gain.  You'll get at least the 9 points you lost, but if you went from 12% to 5% aggregate utilization that could be good for another 15-20 points.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymouswrote:

It's possible that if only your store cards have reported balances and those cards aren't being "counted" by the FICO algorithm that you are being viewed as having no revolving credit use.  Do you have access to negative reason statements?  If you see the one saying, "no recent revolving credit use" or something similar, that would verify that this is the case.  This is one of the reasons why on this forum it is recommended that you use a major bank card (not a store card) to report a small balance.  I personally have used a store card (Lowe's) as my AZEO card in the past and did not see a scoring penalty (the store card "counted") so it seems this issue may vary from person to person and possibly from store card to store card.

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Some store cards are classified/listed as charge cards although they are revolvers. The count/not count issue with store cards is typically card issuer dependent, not profile dependent. Co-branded store cards that can be used elsewhere don't have this issue.

Clearly the AU card is not counting for the OP either. If the AU doesnot have a card issued to him - or has one that is not used use, odds are it won't count regardless of AU's relationship to the primary card holder. That's my experience on one of my wife's cards where I am AU.

[Anonymous]

An additional 15-20 points would be nice.

[Anonymous]

So as it turns out, you are right. All my store cards are categorized as "revolving charge account" on EX, however, EQ and TU has them listed as "revolving or option" and "revolving" respectively. It would be interesting to see if my EQ and TU scores are still intact.