Why Fico score from BoA keep dropping even everything's always paid in full, never miss any due date

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I just wonder how the Fico score from Bank Of America works since my score kept dropping. I have $3500 in credit with BoA, never miss any payment, always pay in full (even I used all $3500).

Jan : 708 Feb: 712 March: 733 April: 712

I'm not sure what's going on here since I'm new to the credit world.

[Kree]

Hello, welcome to the forums.

Your credit score is based in part on your credit utilization. The larger balance that reports, the lower your score will be.

You can still use all 3500 of your credit line, and maintain top scores, but   You have to pay it before the statement is generated.  This way the card reports a 0 balance to the Credit Reporting Agencies, and you will not have utilization penalties.  (I think with 1 card, you would ideally need to leave a 36 dollar balance on your card instead of 0, if you get another card (2 more ideally) you would only allow 1% to report on one of the cards).

[Anonymous]

Nice response by Kree.  Just a few tweaks:

FICO rounds all "percentages" up.  Thus for example 9.002% is rounded up to 10% and 0.15% is rounded up to 1%.  For optimal scoring a person needs a total utilization (all credit limits combined) of 1-9% with individual utilization at 0-29%.

So if our OP has only one card, he is fine with having a balance of (say) $5.  Or it could be as high as $314. 

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous

Jan : 708 Feb: 712 March: 733 April: 712

---

Question for the OP here.  In your subject title you state that your scores "keep" dropping, but in the scores referenced in your post it actually shows 2 growths and 1 drop.  Since you're providing a monthly score above, which I'm assuming you're getting from your BoA account, I'm not clear as to why you're showing older scores when surely you know your May/June/July and maybe even August score by now?

[TyRacing]

Lower your Debt (aka utilization to 1%-9%) before the statement closing date (in the BoA site they call it "Next closing date" under Card Details).

example if your credit limit is $3500 lower your debt to $35 - $315 before next closing date.