Why in the world did score drop 29 points?

[CreditBob]

I do have an accurate answer for you on this because i just went through this situation myself. The dispute manager at Experian told me this. When an account is being disputed it is taken out of circulation with the other trade lines that are not in dispute. In other words the credit report ignores it. As a result the dispute account(s) is not factored into the Fico scorning algorithm. They do this so that it is fair to the consumer. And once the dispute process is over then the credit score adjusts to the new information accordingly.

[Mshellt]

I just took the advice to run credit reports and do you know what I found? NOTHING!! No late payments or anything negative is displaying. But I think I figured it out...I'm a little horrified by this, but I think the problem might be that I paid the minimum amount on my credit cards for two months instead of overpaying as I have steadily for the past 6 months (the minimum payment was around $40 and I have regularly been over paying $4-$500 each month). How horribly unfair if this is the reason! I wonder then, how long it will take for my score to rise up again. Experian went down by 29 points and Transunion went down by 40!

[Mshellt]

SOLVED! I just called into MyFico and it was explained that the cause for the point drop was due to me not using any of my credit cards -_- Seriously...omg these are silly rules to the credit game. I thought having a balance was enough, but apparently I need to use at least one credit card to buy something every month. Guess I'll use it to buy a book on my Amazon wishlist and see if the score goes up again.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Mshellt wrote:

Actually..maybe I'd better follow this up with a question: Could a homeloan credit check cause my score to drop 29 points? (I thought credit checks would only cause a minor drop) And why aren't the credit pulls displaying in my account?

---

No it couldn't

[SouthJamaica]

---

@Mshellt wrote:

SOLVED! I just called into MyFico and it was explained that the cause for the point drop was due to me not using any of my credit cards -_- Seriously...omg these are silly rules to the credit game. I thought having a balance was enough, but apparently I need to use at least one credit card to buy something every month. Guess I'll use it to buy a book on my Amazon wishlist and see if the score goes up again.

---

Very often the CSR's give out wrong information. They just gave you wrong information. I'm sure that the point drop was not due to your not using the cards for a month or two.

[SouthJamaica]

My suggestion would be for you to give us some information as to your installment loans and credit cards, before and after the point drop:

On credit cards: # of accounts, credit limits, balances which reported on statement

On installment loans: # of open installment loans, face amount of loan, loan balance reporting

With that information we'll probably be able to tell you how you lost the points, and how you can get them back.