WHY DID MY SCORE DROP

[Anonymous]

My equifax dropped 6 points. Here is what I received.

Barclays balance $0>$78

Discover balance $0>$469

The only thing I can think of is my CL with Discover is $1,400 and 29% utilization is $406. So maybe I spent to much 🤷‍♂️

Any advice?

[FireMedic1]

Scores are always changing. Going from $0 to any amount will make a score change. You went from 0% to 49% on 1 card. Barclays you didnt say what that CL is. Its gonna happen. It comes down to utilization and how many cards you have. It's not how much you spent. Its how much you let report after the statement cut. Accidently I didnt pay off $13 bucks from a card I keep at $0 reporting for AZEO and I lost 4 points. But as my credit has aged. It wont affect much. I just went up $33 bucks on my AZEO reporting card and no change. There are many factors. You list 2 cards. 3 is best for AZEO and having your scores increase.

[Anonymous]

The Barclays is $500 CL. 

Also, I didn't go up 49% on the Discover. I don't understand why you would say that. It's more like 34%. So if I pay it to zero before the closing statement date, even though it is at $0, they will still give me a positive on making a payment, even though it's zero when it reports? This is where I'm confused. 

[Thomas_Thumb]

Generally accepted revolving utilization thresholds are:

9%, 29% 49%, 69% and 89%.

Utilization is looked at on an individual card basi and in aggregate (all cards combined). 

When revolving utilization goes above a threshold score often drops. The 9% threshold is very important for utilization in aggregate but, score drop on an individual card basis is typically not realized until crossing above 29% or 49%. 

Note: The impact of utilization on score is profile dependent - less effect for aged files with a lot of tradelines. Also, dirty files show less sensitivity to changes in utilization than clean files because FICO weights factors differently depending on a profile's scorecard assignment.

[FireMedic1]

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@Anonymous wrote:

The Barclays is $500 CL. 

Also, I didn't go up 49% on the Discover. I don't understand why you would say that. It's more like 34%. So if I pay it to zero before the closing statement date, even though it is at $0, they will still give me a positive on making a payment, even though it's zero when it reports? This is where I'm confused. 

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My bad. Typo. TT has it.

[Anonymous]

Rodney, based on the 2 alerts you received, a couple of things happened that could have impacted your score drop:

1 - Your number (and percentage) of accounts with a balance increased. 

2 - Your aggregate utilization increased.

3 - Your individual card utilization (Discover) crossed 2 thresholds (8.9%, 28.9%).  If you didn't already have a card at > 28.9% utilization, it means your highest utilization individual credit line increased.

Any one of these factors above could have caused your score drop.  It's also possible that none of them caused your score drop, though.