Score is dropping with AZEO

[Anonymous]

I am attempting to do AZEO to boost my Mortgage Credit Score 3 points but as I am paying the balances to 0 my FICO 8 keeps dropping. I only had a 1% utilization rate to begin with so not sure if that makes a difference but even paying the $9 balance on one card dropped my Experian FICO8 14 points and my Transunion 4 points. Does this rebound when I finall get to AZEO?

[thornback]

Did paying that $9 put all of your revolving balances at $0?

[Anonymous]

No. I still have 4 other cards with a small balance. 
Visa $3 balance - $500 CL

MC $4 balance- $1750 CL

Captial One $3 balance - $750 CL

First National $75 balance- $500 CL

[thornback]

That shouldn't happen with multiple others reporting a balanxe unless something else besides balances changed on your reports at the same time.  Just to be sure, we are definitely looking at FICO scores and not Vantage, correct?  Have you examined your credit report line by line to ensure no other changes occurred?

[Anonymous]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read on the forums somewhere that AZEO is really a simplified way to say "All zero except for less than half your accounts"?

So maybe if 4 cards account for more than half of your total available credit lines, it wouldn't work quite the same as AZEO? Again, I'm not super familiar with the concept, in case anyone with a better understanding would have more insight 

Either way though, it is kinda strange to see a score drop as balances are being paid off. Did any accounts on your report recently close, or did you recently get any new inquiries?

[thornback]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read on the forums somewhere that AZEO is really a simplified way to say "All zero except for less than half your accounts"?

So maybe if 4 cards account for more than half of your total available credit lines, it wouldn't work quite the same as AZEO? Again, I'm not super familiar with the concept, in case anyone with a better understanding would have more insight 

Either way though, it is kinda strange to see a score drop as balances are being paid off. Did any accounts on your report recently close, or did you recently get any new inquiries?

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It's All Zero Execpt One. 3 total cards is the easiest ratio to work with because 33% or less cards with a balance is recommended; 1 / 3 is 33% 

If you have more than 3 cards, then just hitting 33% or less of total cards with a balance is an option (so if you had 9 cards, you could do 2 / 9 (22%) instead of 1/9).

@Anonymous how many total revolving cards do you have? 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I only had a 1% utilization rate to begin with so not sure if that makes a difference but even paying the $9 balance on one card dropped my Experian FICO8 14 points and my Transunion 4 points.

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Paying off the $9 balance did not drop your scores.  You listed that you have multiple other bank cards with non-zero reported balances, so paying off any with the exception of the final one will have no adverse impact on your scores.  You could see some slight increases in fact due to less accounts with a reported balance, with maximum potential gain realized once you're at AZEO.  If you lost 14 points or 4 points on any score of yours, it happened due to something other than the $9 paydown/single account payoff.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely nothing else has changed on my credit report except regular monthly payments. Nothing was late, no new inquiries, nothing. I monitor all 3 bureaus daily. I have 9 total revolving accounts on my report. 2 of the accounts are my husband's and I'm an AU. None are store cards. 

[Anonymous]

If I were you I'd do a line by line comparison of the 2 reports.  Again, it's not possible that paying off that single $9 balance would drop your scores.

[NoHardLimits]

You mentioned that you have AU cards.  Did the payment make all of your AU cards report a zero balance?