Sudden series of score increases, reason to worry?

[mizvalentine]

I'm not complaining, exactly, but I'm wondering if a sudden unexpected score increase is ever a sign of a problem (ie identity theft or something).

I have ScoreWatch and over the past 6 months, my Equifax score has gone from 696 to 762 as of today.  It made a huge leap from 702 in May, to 742 in July, and then its gone up about 10pts/week for the past two weeks.  I haven't opened any new accounts or gotten any balance increases, and to be honest, my credit card utilization has been somewhat high due to summer travel.

I pulled my TU score late last month, and its still just 696.  I looked over both reports and they seem to be the same. The only difference is that Equifax has two 60+ day delinquencies from 2007 on one account, and TU has two 90 day delinquencies from Sept 2005 on the same account.  They are the same two delinquencies, the agencies just have different dates attached.

Could the delinquency dates be the issue? I would think EQ would be lower though if that's the case.... but maybe the 60's are weighted less than the 90's? Will the 2007 delinquencies age off my report in Sept and bring the scores even?  And most importantly...could this be a sign someone's out there using my credit to open new accounts or something?

Thank you!!

[llecs]

Congrats on the increases!

I certainly wouldn't be concerned. You should always revew your CRs at least quarterly for changes, but FICO increases wouldn't necessarily be indicative of ID theft. Usually it would be the opposite as new accounts are added, balances increase, and lates are added due to unpaid bills.

SW will alert you to new accounts, so no worries there. The increases could be due to improved CC util, aging of those baddies, dropped lates, CLIs, account aging, etc., and all of which wouldn't trigger a credit alert via SW, though could trigger a score alert as you experienced. Definitely review your CRs regularly.

Don't correlate your TU and EQ reports. They contain different info which results in different scores. Even the smallest of differences like late placements, dates, balances, etc., can produce radically different scores. Even if precisely the same, the FICO formula between EQ and TU differs.