Score dropped by 49 points (759 to 710) for seemingly no reason?

[Wooohah]

I just happened to look at the free Fico score report in my Citi credit card account today and noticed my score dropped to 710 in June vs 759 in May. The score updates about once every month or so, so 710 was as of 6/21/2022. I didn't open any new accounts and my utilization has actually gone down. Is there any way to find out why exactly my score dropped by nearly 50 points? If there was some kind of reporting error, I'd like to dispute it if possible. 

TIA!

[expatCanuck]

I'd get a free Experian report (experian.com) and review it.  Drill into the reason codes behind the score.

To me, a 50-point drop suggests that derogatory information was reported.

Alternately, a combination of no balance reported (20 point drop) and your average age of accounts dropping because an old account fell off and that account impacted the credit mix (but even then, the combination doesn't quite add up for me).

[Wooohah]

Hey! Thanks for the advice. I just signed up for an Experian account and took a look. Its showing a score of 769. I have a 7% credit utilization, 3 hard inquiries (which line up with the last 3 cards I signed up for). So I'm a bit confused now. In my Citi app for my personal score its showing 710 as of June, I do believe they use the FICO model. I checked my Capitol One app which I have a business card on, that shows a score of 762, although I think they use Transunion/ Vantage Score 3.0. I actually don't think its my business credit because it shows the same credit utilization, total available credit and inquiries as my personal account. 

Is my credit score of 769 on Experian the most accurate? Or would it be the 710 shown in my Citi account? I don't see any derogatory remarks noted in my Experian account, so I can't think of a reason why my score would drop so much.

I don't carry a balance on any of my personal cards, I always pay them off on time or early. My business card is a charge card, so I can't carry a balance on it. It supposedly doesn't have a limit but it declined at $55k last month. I paid it off immediately. I don't think utilization on my business accounts affects my personal score, so I don't think its that either. 

[simplynoir]

Just be aware that Citi's FICO score provided uses Equifax Fico 8 Bankcard which can vary from FICO 08 scoring models most banks typically use. That might explain the variance between that score and what you see on your Experian FICO 08 score/report from the Experian website assuming all reports are equal with reporting

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Wooohah wrote:

I just happened to look at the free Fico score report in my Citi credit card account today and noticed my score dropped to 710 in June vs 759 in May. The score updates about once every month or so, so 710 was as of 6/21/2022. I didn't open any new accounts and my utilization has actually gone down. Is there any way to find out why exactly my score dropped by nearly 50 points? If there was some kind of reporting error, I'd like to dispute it if possible. 

TIA!

---

You should examine your Equifax report to see what's in there.  You can get a free simplified version of it on Credit Karma. 

Of course the only way to know for sure about the score drop would be to examine your EQ reports from the day before the score change and from the day of the change, but that's not possible at this point.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Wooohah wrote:

Hey! Thanks for the advice. I just signed up for an Experian account and took a look. Its showing a score of 769. I have a 7% credit utilization, 3 hard inquiries (which line up with the last 3 cards I signed up for). So I'm a bit confused now. In my Citi app for my personal score its showing 710 as of June, I do believe they use the FICO model. I checked my Capitol One app which I have a business card on, that shows a score of 762, although I think they use Transunion/ Vantage Score 3.0. I actually don't think its my business credit because it shows the same credit utilization, total available credit and inquiries as my personal account. 

Is my credit score of 769 on Experian the most accurate? Or would it be the 710 shown in my Citi account? I don't see any derogatory remarks noted in my Experian account, so I can't think of a reason why my score would drop so much.

I don't carry a balance on any of my personal cards, I always pay them off on time or early. My business card is a charge card, so I can't carry a balance on it. It supposedly doesn't have a limit but it declined at $55k last month. I paid it off immediately. I don't think utilization on my business accounts affects my personal score, so I don't think its that either. 

---

I don't know why our friend @expatCanuck suggested looking at your Experian report, because the score on Citibank's site is an Equifax score.

[expatCanuck]

I suggested EX because it's comprehensive, informative, and free.

That's how I roll.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Wooohah wrote:

Hey! Thanks for the advice. I just signed up for an Experian account and took a look. Its showing a score of 769. I have a 7% credit utilization, 3 hard inquiries (which line up with the last 3 cards I signed up for). So I'm a bit confused now. In my Citi app for my personal score its showing 710 as of June, I do believe they use the FICO model. I checked my Capitol One app which I have a business card on, that shows a score of 762, although I think they use Transunion/ Vantage Score 3.0. I actually don't think its my business credit because it shows the same credit utilization, total available credit and inquiries as my personal account. 

Is my credit score of 769 on Experian the most accurate? Or would it be the 710 shown in my Citi account? I don't see any derogatory remarks noted in my Experian account, so I can't think of a reason why my score would drop so much.

I don't carry a balance on any of my personal cards, I always pay them off on time or early. My business card is a charge card, so I can't carry a balance on it. It supposedly doesn't have a limit but it declined at $55k last month. I paid it off immediately. I don't think utilization on my business accounts affects my personal score, so I don't think its that either. 

---

Citi uses (a) a different bureau -- Equifax rather than Experian -- and (b) a different scoring model, Bankcard 8 rather than Classic 8, and (c) it pulled the score on a different date, probably much earlier.

[Anonymalous]

---

@Wooohah wrote:

Is my credit score of 769 on Experian the most accurate? Or would it be the 710 shown in my Citi account? I don't see any derogatory remarks noted in my Experian account, so I can't think of a reason why my score would drop so much.

They're both accurate. You have more than 40 FICO scores, and all of those scores can change in an instant as new information is provided to the bureaus. Each of the two scores you're comparing is likely to be an accurate reflection of your score using a particular version of the FICO model, at the moment in time when the score was generated.

@SouthJamaicais correct that the best way to determine why your score dropped almost 50 points is to look at your Equifax credit report just before and after. But since it sounds like that's not an option, and you're seeing a large discrepancy between your Experian and Equifax scores, pulling both your EX and EQ reports and comparing them for differences might help you figure out what happened. The best place to pull credit reports is AnnualCreditReport.com (the official government-authorized site put together by the three bureaus), which because of the pandemic is currently allowing free weekly pulls.

It's also a good idea to sign up for a credit monitoring service, which will update you of significant changes to your credit report. Since you've signed up for Experian, you should start getting notifications if anything notable shows up on your Experian credit report. One way to keep abreast of changes to your Equifax and Transunion credit reports is to sign up for Credit Karma (CK), though ignore the CK scores and only use it for the notifications of changes to your credit reports (CK scores are Vantage Scores, not FICO scores, and are used by very few lenders).

[Anonymous]

---

@expatCanuck wrote:

I'd get a free Experian report (experian.com) and review it.  Drill into the reason codes behind the score.

To me, a 50-point drop suggests that derogatory information was reported.

Alternately, a combination of no balance reported (20 point drop) and your average age of accounts dropping because an old account fell off and that account impacted the credit mix (but even then, the combination doesn't quite add up for me).

---

Bullseye. I think you probably nailed it.