advice please! score drop 26pts -- 2nd UPDATE!

[elim]

while my reports are frozen i wait for my bills then push the payments in full.   sooooooo easy,   sooooooo nice compared to multiple payments (those monster payments look pretty good on my reports too).

i had 8 cards report decent balances this month,..  lost a few points...  who cares really.   those points come back when you perfect your UTIL (when needed) for an app.

i'm not going to manipulate my Utilization for the rest of the year.  

[Anonymous]

Yep, I learned this lesson a couple months ago too, with a 30-40 point drop. I was basically only charging one or two small things to both of my cards each month, solely for util purposes. The month we moved, I just forgot, and didn't use the cards at all, and got dinged hard. Fortunately I also learned this is an easily controllable and quickly remedied aspect of the score. Making a charge on one fully restored my scores when that balance got reported.

[Scupra]

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@NRB525 wrote:

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@JcT21 wrote:

woke up this morning, logged in to my exp credit monitoring and did my daily credit check...omg..... why did my experian fico score drop 26 points for paying off my debt?  reasons given was i have no credit card activity.  is that correct?  so if i dont have debt my score drops?   fico punishes me for being responsible and paying bills?   but i have debt, i have  2 auto loans reporting.  is that not counted as activity?

is there anything i can do to bring my score back to normal again, soon?   is it gonna take months to rebuild back to 700's again? 

THIS SUCKS!  any advice is appreciated....

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Do you have any negatives in your file? Any old 30-day lates? Given the drop below 700 while you still have the auto loans open makes me think there is some other negative there.

What was the amount of CC balances you had a month ago, vs going to zero on CC balances?

As to trying to just let one card report, you can certainly do that, I doubt it is going to make a noticeable difference from just paying the cards in full after you use them normally.

And yes, the credit bureaus like to see some action on the cards, even PIF, so they have some payments to measure.

Good luck!

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Letting one card report a balance while all other cards report no balance will make ALL the difference

[tpjets]

Who would have thought?? Some of these formulas are ridiculous when compared to the real world....I pay off a $59 balance and my score jumps +4, pay off a $39 balance and it drops -24.....just absurd...... 

[JcT21]

UPDATE 6-13

just checked equifax.  the updated payoff is being reflected and my score has JUMPED 5 points.   how can the same action that caused a 26 point drop on experian, cause a  5 point gain on equifax?   im thankful for the gain but very confused!  ..thoughts??

all info is identical on all 3 reports.   the updated payoff is not showing on TU yet.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yes, they can't tell you're using your cards.  It happened to me.  Doesn't matter what you charge & PIF every month.  To them, it's nothing if that is what's reporting.  I go for a while with one reporting and then I'll let a few report balances so they know I'm using them.  Getting ready to do that next month.

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So I guess it's working out to my advantage, this month I've PIF on all cards before the close date except for my HD card which has the 0% financing for (I think 15 months) for the riding mower I bought and paying $100 each month on. Since my CL is $10k, that means it's showing about 10% usage on that card. That should be enough according to what I'm reading on here.

[NRB525]

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@JcT21 wrote:

UPDATE 6-13

just checked equifax.  the updated payoff is being reflected and my score has JUMPED 5 points.   how can the same action that caused a 26 point drop on experian, cause a  5 point gain on equifax?   im thankful for the gain but very confused!  ..thoughts??

all info is identical on all 3 reports.   the updated payoff is not showing on TU yet.

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It is quite possible something else is quietly changing in the background of EX. Not much to do, just let balances report, pay on time, and look forward to the BK removal.

There could also be a bounce back on EX in a few weeks. Hard to predict sometimes. 

Did you have any dispute letters on any issues? If those are expired or removed, you get no notice of it, score can change 

Good luck!

[NRB525]

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@Scupra wrote:

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Letting one card report a balance while all other cards report no balance will make ALL the difference

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Letting one balance report instead of no balances, yes that will make a difference. 

Preventing other active cards from reporting balances even though PIF is only worth a few, difficult to isolate points. 

What makes all the difference is simply to pay on time.  

[JcT21]

ahh... disputes.   not that its anything major, but i did dispute a few things.  i got my letter a few weeks ago regarding my dispute of an old telephone number and a misspelling of the street name of my address.   that was corrected, but that was roughly 3 weeks ago.   do you think those changes could have played a role in this whole thing?

ill continue to monitor my report/scores and see what happens a about a week or so when my cap1 reports a tank of gas. 

i appreciate all the help from each and every one of you!    if you guys continue to have any thoughts, please share :-)

[elim]

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@JcT21 wrote:

ahh... disputes.   not that its anything major, but i did dispute a few things.  i got my letter a few weeks ago regarding my dispute of an old telephone number and a misspelling of the street name of my address.   that was corrected, but that was roughly 3 weeks ago.   do you think those changes could have played a role in this whole thing?

ill continue to monitor my report/scores and see what happens a about a week or so when my cap1 reports a tank of gas. 

i appreciate all the help from each and every one of you!    if you guys continue to have any thoughts, please share :-)

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   disputes on Personal Information won't affect your scores.  (Mod Cut - This method is not allowed to be posted on this board)