Sudden Unexplained Transunion Drop

[hillskip]

Hello!

I've been on my absolute best behavior with my credit and steadily my scores have been going up. Then, boom! Out of the blue, my Transunion score dropped 17 points. The alert doesn't indicate the reason for the drop. no mention of a collection, a late payment, an increase in overall credit.....I think this is unbelievably confusing and hope someone can help me understand this!

I'm so depressed about this--it's troubling when hard work doesn't pan out at all!

TIA!

[Anonymous]

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@hillskip wrote:

Hello!

I've been on my absolute best behavior with my credit and steadily my scores have been going up. Then, boom! Out of the blue, my Transunion score dropped 17 points. The alert doesn't indicate the reason for the drop. no mention of a collection, a late payment, an increase in overall credit.....I think this is unbelievably confusing and hope someone can help me understand this!

I'm so depressed about this--it's troubling when hard work doesn't pan out at all!

TIA!

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What's happened with TU lately? Any old accounts fall off? Any changes to balances? If it just happened today, I think a new alert is probably on the way in a day or two. At least that's my experience.

[Anonymous]

A 17 point drop is pretty standard in going from at least one of your credit cards reporting a balance to having all cards reporting zero balances.  Did you pay off every one of your credit cards and did zero balances report on all of them by chance?

[hillskip]

Hi

I didn't pay anything down to 0. I tried to keep a balance on all of them.  But it seems like whatever I do, I manage to keep from having true improvement!

[Anonymous]

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@hillskip wrote:

Hi

I didn't pay anything down to 0. I tried to keep a balance on all of them.  But it seems like whatever I do, I manage to keep from having true improvement!

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To maximize scorring - only one card should have a small balance ($5-$10), the other cards should report a zero balance.  Also, from a recent experience with my own credit, you're probably getting dinged for having more than 50% of your cards reporting a balance.

What is your aggregate util %?  If over 9% you're getting dinged for that as well.  If over 30% you're be dinged even more.

[heavyjay]

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@hillskip wrote:

Hello!

I've been on my absolute best behavior with my credit and steadily my scores have been going up. Then, boom! Out of the blue, my Transunion score dropped 17 points. The alert doesn't indicate the reason for the drop. no mention of a collection, a late payment, an increase in overall credit.....I think this is unbelievably confusing and hope someone can help me understand this!

I'm so depressed about this--it's troubling when hard work doesn't pan out at all!

TIA!

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FICO or Vantage score?

[hillskip]

FICO

[Anonymous]

Hillskip, please see LOTR's post above as that could be part of your problem.

[Anonymous]

In my case, I just had a 13 point drop in my EX score. I've had no new inquiries, no new accounts, no over due accounts, no judgements, no new negatives, no foreclosures or bankruptcies, and my utilization is at 6%. all my balances are being paid by the due date. The only thing I've begun doing is paying a few days after I charge anything, trying to end up with a zero balance reported when the report dates come. I called EX hoping for some insights into what happened and was basically told that legally they can't tell me. I have to get a copy of my report, try to find anything wrong with it and dispute it if I can find anything. What if I can't find anything wrong? Shouldn't the bureaus tell us why? It doesn't seem fair. Am I being penalized for paying?

[DollyLama]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In my case, I just had a 13 point drop in my EX score. I've had no new inquiries, no new accounts, no over due accounts, no judgements, no new negatives, no foreclosures or bankruptcies, and my utilization is at 6%. all my balances are being paid by the due date. The only thing I've begun doing is paying a few days after I charge anything, trying to end up with a zero balance reported when the report dates come. I called EX hoping for some insights into what happened and was basically told that legally they can't tell me. I have to get a copy of my report, try to find anything wrong with it and dispute it if I can find anything. What if I can't find anything wrong? Shouldn't the bureaus tell us why? It doesn't seem fair. Am I being penalized for paying?

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Hmm, just for clarification you mean your FICO reports? If you rely on that for paying cards it doesn't work that way. It more example Capital One, statement date May 10th, due date 28th. You pay before the statement date cuts not when you expect your FICO reports if you are on a monthly plan here. Best habit is as soon as your receive your bill, pay it immediately.