Why isn't my score moving?

[OnTheRebound]

I'm subscribed to ScoreWatch here at MyFico.com.

On July 9, 2011 I pulled my EQ report with a score of 704 with the following balances reporting:

Amex Blue Cash Preferred- 34%

Citi Plat Select- 20%

Chase Freedom- 11%

Home Depot- 0%

Lowes- 0%

11% overall utilities Reporting. I have no installment, car, or mortgage loans reporting.

Soon after I pulled the July 9th report, following the advice of so many here, I paid down the balances to to report the following:

Amex- 0%

Citi- 4%

Chase-0%

Home Depot-0%

Lowes- 0%

2% overall utilities. All my reports have updated.

I'm stumped as to why my EQ score has not moved. No alerts. I was expecting maybe a 10 point gain. Could it be a EQ glitch? Or am I missing something? Nothing has changed except my AAofA is one month older. Also, Citi and HD is 12 months old this month.

Thanks for any insight.

[llecs]

On the pos/neg reasons of your FICO report, where does utilization lie at (e.g. #1, #4, or a positive?)?

[GregB]

You were probably in a bucket where there was nothing left to gain by the change in utilization, which is fairly small. It is also possible that your utilization was already in the best catagory.

What else is on your report?

[OnTheRebound]

Hurting your score

1. Public Record (Tax Lien)2. Short account history (AAofA 4 yrs. Oldest account opened 16 yrs, 10 months ago)3. High credit usage (11%)

Helping your score

1. No missed payments2. Recent credit card use3. Not seeking credit

Also, prior to opening the Citi and HD accounts a year ago, my score was 716.

[kjm79]

Has your report updated all of the balances to reflect the lower util?  Have you pulled a new report/score since July?  Depending on what your settings are set to, it's possible your score has gone up but it didn't trigger an alert. 

[OnTheRebound]

After reading all the complaints in the Product Feedback Forum about ScoreWatch not alerting to changes, I decided to pull my free Power Score Report to see if those complaints are legitimate. Sure enough they are. My new report shows a 5 point gain, 704-709. #3 under "What's Hurting" changed to "No Installment Loans" I never received an alert of any kind since 7/9. And, yes, I always set my target score to my current score.

I really don't see any point in wasting money on ScoreWatch if we have to pull a new report to see the changes that we know occurred but weren't alerted to.

ETA: My utilities went from 11% - 1%.

[kjm79]

That is frustrating!  But congrats on the 5 points!!!!! 

[GregB]

When you look at the settings for Scorewatch you can see that an alert is generated according to changes in certain parameters. One of them is a change in score. It doesn't generate a score every day. The things that generat an alert are an account goes UP by X percent, goes UP by X dollars, an inactive account is used, or a negative item is posted.  If one of your accounts goes UP by your set parameters, an inactive account is used, or a negative item is posted THEN it generates a new score. If an account balance goes DOWN, that does not generate an alert or a new score. Some people has said that a new score is generated regardless at certain times - every 10 days, every month, who knows?

So if you had balances go down but no alert was generated by the other parameter, you wouldn't get an alert and a new score. When you set the setting to give you the most alerts, you do get notified when you have a change that makes your score go down BUT it is slow to notify you to changes that would make your score go up. It isn't ideal for someone trying to get their score UP but any other monitoring product gives you worthless scores. I use another monitoring product to track changes and Scorewatch to track a useful score and give me a good price when I need a new EQ FICO score.

Bottom line is that there is no single product that is better for many people but if you are monitoring your credit completely you may need Scorewatch and something else.

[Anonymous]

The fact that your AAoA is listed before your utilization also indicates the ding at 11% was very minor as 4 years AAoA is not bad (not terrific, but not terrible). As Greg mentioned, your new score may not be generated yet, but I wouldn't expect a huge move when it is.

-debtisgood

[OnTheRebound]

Funny. Just received an alert saying "No important changes were found". This is the first since 7/9.