Scores drop, is this interesting?

[909]

In the last three days my FICO 8s each dropped:

TU -4 pts to 782

EX -2 pts to 809

EQ -22 pts to 789

I expected declines but the 22 pts for EQ was a bit of a surprise and the coinciding alert was "An account that has been inactive for five months has recently become active." Now, I know that alert messages are not necessarily the cause of a score change and I'll get back to that one.

I have seven revolvers with $107,250 CL. I've been generally keeping AZEO with aboiut 1% UTIL for several months.

Yesterday I received alerts that two account balances increased from zero to $78 and $36 both still at 0% UTIL. I also received an alert that my AMEX BCP balance went from $597 (1% UTIL) to $6,898 (13% UTIL on a $50K CL) These alerts coincided with the 2 pt drop at Experian. 

So, now I have three of seven revolvers reporting a total balance of $6,983 for 6.5% total UTIL and one card at 13% UTIL. Each of these changes seem like they'd adversely affect my scores and they make sense to me.

This is what I'm wondering about:

- Why did EQ drop 22 points while the others moved just a few points? It's been pretty stable for several months so it's curious. I'm guessing it will rebound when AMEX reports about 1% UTIL next month so this isn't a big deal.

- The alert that said " An account that has been inactive for five months..." referred to my AMEX BCE (not the AMEX BCP) which has seen 5 - 10 transactions per month. I confirmed this my looking at my Fico credit report from February and lo and behold, the Equifax column says "Last Activity: Sep, 2016" despite the fact that it's had dozens of transactions (the TU and EX columns are blank or say n/a). What it hasn't had is a positive balance reported because I pay it off multiple times eachy month in an effort to stay AZEO.

- Is this old news that a zero balance may equal no activity even though there are many transactions?

- Does waking an inactive account have an impact on scores?

Thanks.

[DollyLama]

No idea, but it is interesting. Seems like 5 months is not really all that long of a time to be inactive. I had pondered if should alternate on CCs PIF the one open and charge on another and let that balance hit. If this is in fact the case, it may be problematic if you hold quite a few CCs. 

[Anonymous]

CreditGuyInDixie (who's advice I have always found spot on) once advised me to not let a card go more than 6 months with a zero balance and that it's a good idea to leave a small balance on at least one card every few months. Not sure if this was the cause, but maybe?...

The 22 pt drop seems insane though. Could be a combo of the above along with an increase in utilization % at last reporting would be my guess. 

[NRB525]

Was there something happening related to your September 2010 late? Is it still on your report? Did it somehow refresh or disappear / reappear on EQ?

[909]

^^^ Good point. I can get an updated 3B on the 15th so I'll check that out.