(*&^%*$^#* I don't get it! ! ! ! !

[PRILEY]

This is my first post. I don't get the score thing. To me it's almost like we have no control over whats happening. On 7-5, I recieved an alert that said I jumped 5 pts which put me at 683. My target was 680 before I apply for a new mortgage. YIPPEE ! ! ! Then today I get an alert that says my score dropped 9 pts. Now I'm at 674  BOO HOO ! ! ! ! Absolutly nothing has changed since then except maybe 2 CC increassed my limit. depending when this was reported. and no there were no hard hits, I checked. The score watch page said I had derog. accts. late pays and short credit history.

derog accts are 5-6 years old. Oldest acct is 18yrs 5 mo. Ave accts age is 6 years old and no late payments for 5 years. Right now I have 28% usage on revolving credit and last month it was 36%

I even called MyFico and talked to a rep. that looked at my report and couldn't tell me why my score took a hit. They even gave me a complimentary report to look over. I looked it over and called back, talked to another rep and she couldn't tell me why it was saying things about acct age/derog/ lates or why the 9 pt drop. told me to call equifax. Did that to no avail, after explaining my delima then holding for 40 minutes they told me to call MyFico. What a wonderful system. If anyone could shed light on this i'm all ears. Thanks Pat

[Anonymous]

As you have already siad it is not UTL-

What was the Score alert Data when you +5?

Number of accounts w/ a balance before and after?  

[Junejer]

---

@PRILEY wrote:

This is my first post. I don't get the score thing. To me it's almost like we have no control over whats happening. On 7-5, I recieved an alert that said I jumped 5 pts which put me at 683. My target was 680 before I apply for a new mortgage. YIPPEE ! ! ! Then today I get an alert that says my score dropped 9 pts. Now I'm at 674  BOO HOO ! ! ! ! Absolutly nothing has changed since then except maybe 2 CC increassed my limit. depending when this was reported. and no there were no hard hits, I checked. The score watch page said I had derog. accts. late pays and short credit history.

derog accts are 5-6 years old. Oldest acct is 18yrs 5 mo. Ave accts age is 6 years old and no late payments for 5 years. Right now I have 28% usage on revolving credit and last month it was 36%

I even called MyFico and talked to a rep. that looked at my report and couldn't tell me why my score took a hit. They even gave me a complimentary report to look over. I looked it over and called back, talked to another rep and she couldn't tell me why it was saying things about acct age/derog/ lates or why the 9 pt drop. told me to call equifax. Did that to no avail, after explaining my delima then holding for 40 minutes they told me to call MyFico. What a wonderful system. If anyone could shed light on this i'm all ears. Thanks Pat

---

Hi Coach. I would really take a gine-toothed comb to the two reports. Sometimes some really subtle change has taken place. Check your status in each TL.

This can be frustrating, but you need to get your score up for your mortgage. For a quick score jump, get your UTIL to 9% or less for reporting next month.

[PRILEY]

score alert when it jumped 5 said not using as much credit / or not heavey use. but nothing changed except I paid more on cc to get it from 36% to 28%. not sure if that even got reported between 7-5 and 7-8    ARGGGGGG         9 pts ! !   Now my score is the same as it was 11-07

The simulator says if I pay down my dept to 9% in 1 payment my score will be 694 to 734, does that sound right?

[haulingthescoreup]

---

@PRILEY wrote:

score alert when it jumped 5 said not using as much credit / or not heavey use. but nothing changed except I paid more on cc to get it from 36% to 28%. not sure if that even got reported between 7-5 and 7-8 ARGGGGGG 9 pts ! ! Now my score is the same as it was 11-07

The simulator says if I pay down my dept to 9% in 1 payment my score will be 694 to 734, does that sound right?

---

If your payments were updated in time to show the drop in util from 36% to 28%, that could have done it, because you went under 30%. It's not the exact percentage amount on your util; it's going under (or over) one of the util breakpoints. One is "under 30%", and you crossed that.

If the sim is projecting another hop to around 714 (I usually go by the middle of the range given) for dropping your util down to 9%, that would be from crossing another breakpoint (under 10%.) If you're at 679 now (I sorta lost track, LOL), that would be a pretty good-sized jump, but the sims are pretty reliable when it comes to predicting changes based on util, IMO.

And that was the option for one-time payment, not the pay down 90% of balances over 2 years? If you ever get that second option, BTW, that doesn't mean drag out your payments over 24 months. It means pay them down ASAP and keep them down, and in two years, your scores will be within that range. It's the keep on, keepin' on option. (And of course, that doesn't take into account anything else you might do in the meantime.)

[PRILEY]

Thats the thing, my score droped as my balance droped (went from 36% to 28%)

I don't get it.

[haulingthescoreup]

Oops, sorry, the coffee isn't fully working yet.

Look back up at Timothy's post. How many of your accounts (mortgage, loan, CC, everything) reported a balance higher than $0 on the first report, and how many on the second? You can get hurt for "too many accounts with balances", even when overall util goes down.

Don't know if you've done this yet, but if not, take a break and read Credit Scoring 101, stickied up at the top of most of the boards. (At least read the first main thread and some after that; it has really grown, lol.)

Credit scoring is incredibly intricate, and it's very difficult to isolate out one change on your reports and say, "By golly, that's what did it."