Utilization went down, score dropped 20 points

[Anonymous]

Got an alert from Experian telling me that my utilization went from 85% to 78% on a card, but my Fico 8 dropped 20 points.  This is the only change I am seeing from Experian.  This concerns me as I was assuming my score would either remain unchanged, or go up a few points.  I recently received a CLI on this account, and the current utilization is at 30%, but the CLI has not been reported yet.

Would anyone please share their thoughts on this?

[Anonymous]

Something else changed.

The alert you received is not at all related to your score drop.  Movement from 85% utilization to 78% utilization would not result in any score change, as the movement was between two threshold points (68.9%, 88.9%) and did not cross either.

You mentioned the individual utilization on 2 different cards, but what about your aggregate utilization?

[Anonymous]

My current reported aggregate utilization across all cards is 37%.  Next reporting cycle should drop that down to around 23%

I have been paying down my credit card balances, and have also received a credit line increase on two accounts.  Maybe I just need to disregard this score change for now and wait until my reports show my updated information?

[Anonymous]

I figured out what happened.  I had a charged off account that was settled from two years ago.  Experian was still updating monthly with an incorrect balance.  I disputed the account, the balance was corrected, but it looks like they noted in my accoutn that I failed to make a payment in October.  This account has been paid for over two years...

Guess it's back to the dispute center.

[Anonymous]

Crossing the 28.9% threshold on aggregate utilization will probably yield you around 15 FICO points, give or take.

[Fire6546]

I went from 30%util across the board to 2% and my fico9’s took a big dump after I paid several cards to zero balance , fico8 stayed the same

Edit to add...vantage scores took a big hit same as fico9 about 54 points after paying all but one card off

[kilroy8]

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@Fire6546 wrote:
I went from 30%util across the board to 2% and my fico9’s took a big dump after I paid several cards to zero balance , fico8 stayed the same

Edit to add...vantage scores took a big hit same as fico9 about 54 points after paying all but one card off

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I don't think so. Fico 8 would surely have increased, unsure about Fico 9. Something else is going on, or your score wasn't rescored after the decrease in util or something.

[Fire6546]

even when I use the simulators and simulate what happens when I pay off my balances, it tells me hmm thats not normal usually scores go up but yours appears to go down and infact they do just that

[Anonymous]

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even when I use the simulators and simulate what happens when I pay off my balances, it tells me hmm thats not normal usually scores go up but yours appears to go down and infact they do just that

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Simulators are garbage and can never be trusted.

FICO scores don't go down from paying off balances, so long as you still have at least one reported balance.  If you went from 30% aggregate utilization to 2% aggregate utilization your scores would not have dropped.  If you are seeing a score drop, it was from another event completely.

[Fire6546]

Ok, so I got scores refreshed this morning and my fico8 did in fact go up 38 points from October after paying down to zero many of my accounts, however my vantage 3.0 did go down 54 points and my vantage scores have seemed to do that last couple months if if I pay a card off and not carry a balance