Utilization drops from 30% to 25% - very unexpected increases in score

[devacraze]

Hello all.

So last week I pulled all three scores from myfico and they were  EQ 775, EXP 747 and TU 726.

Util at 31% overall - spread over 3 cards

AAoA is 11 years

I have about 118k CL across six cards

No baddies

I paid down one card  ($7k balance) to zero and total utilization dropped to 25%. I still have 30% utilz on one card and almost 50% on another card.

Scores jumped to: EQ 829, EXP 787 and TU 741.

I expected the 15 pt jump on TU but the 40 point jump on EXP and 54 point jump on EQ were very [pleasantly] surprising.

Any thoughts as to why the increase was so much?

Just trying to understand the drivers of the score and I hope it jumps as much again when I pay them all off!

[Revelate]

At a guess, it's likely from the number of cards reporting balances which also is calculated in the FICO model.

We have a member who let $1 report across all her 8 tradelines and her score dropped 50ish points.  In this instance, if you have the majority of that balance on a few tradelines, zeroing one of them out might have crossed a threshold.

[Kratos-TM]

CC utilization is a BIG deal to FICO, and the higher your score "potential", the more massive the changes in score from "very small" things. With an AAoA of 11 years, you have an elite score potential (possibly 840-850), so therefore you will see much greater variations than those in the low 700 ranges.

If you went for max score by playing the FICO rules (one card reporting a 2-4% balance while all other cards report 0 balance), I wouldn't be surprise if your numbers went to high 8's on all 3 bureaus. .

Side note......the TU on myfico is an old version (98). If the report is the same across the 3 bureaus, expect your TU score when a lender pulls to match your scores better with the other 2. You might have an 800+ score already with TU04 or TU08. 

Another side note.....the EX on here is the 08 version, and the 08's penalize you heavier on CC usage, so expect a big gain from EX once you play the FICO CC uti game as I mentioned earlier.

The EQ is here is the 04 version.

[user5387]

One point here is that adverse scoring events often tend to take a bigger hit on high scores, and so presumably this works in reverse as well.

Here's an article that touches on this point:

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/questions/credit_problem_comparison.aspx

[devacraze]

Thank you all very much for the valuable insight. It has always bugged me that the myfico TU was lower and now I understand why.