Welcome @PastaThing
It appears its a how many of your cards are reporting. If none report a balance. You'll get the all zero penalty. If all cards report a balance. Almost the same thing. Where you getting your scores? How many cards do you have? Need a bit more info.
@PastaThing wrote:Hello, Thank you so much for reading this. I have 2 questions. Please answer whichever one you know something about, if you can. I appreciate it!
Q 1: I have been working for years to get a good score. I finally made a dent, but failed, just this once, to let a card go to statement with a balance on it. Two of my scores dropped. One by 11 points, but the highest one dropped by a whopping 25 points! That took me years to grow! Will the points just come back as soon as I let the card go to statement with a balance on it next time? Or am i stuck with a crappy score?
Thank you!
They will come back as soon as a balance reports. Utilization has no memory.
Q 2: One of my scores always seems completely unaffected by the card I let go to statement. I once accidentally let a different card go to statement, and suddenly my usually unresponsive score went up. The other two scores seemed not to really care about that card. What should I do? Let both go to statement? Or just deal with the fact that it has to be either/or?
What do you do when this happens?
Thank you!It normally doesn't matter which card you use to report a balance, except that it's best to use a standard bank card that is not a Chase card. There have been some reports of the algorithm ignoring a balance for AZEO purposes if it's a store card, a card from certain credit unions, or a card with a gigantic credit limit. Also it's safer not to use a Chase card as the balance-reporting card, since when you pay off a Chase card the zero balance may get reported right away, as opposed to at the end of the cycle.
@PastaThing wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:Welcome @PastaThing
It appears its a how many of your cards are reporting. If none report a balance. You'll get the all zero penalty. If all cards report a balance. Almost the same thing. Where you getting your scores? How many cards do you have? Need a bit more info.
Hello! Thanks so much!
I am getting my scores from my myFico membership. I have 3 cards: 1 still secured Harley Davidson ($300), one Capital One ($3300), and one Discover ($1500).
The card I usually let go to statement (Capital One), only seems to affect two scores (Equifax and TransUnion) has a $3300 limit on it, and I stay under 20% utilization, usually much less. The Harley Davidson has a $300 credit limit, and when I accidentally let it go to statement with $12 on it, my Experian Score went up a few points for the first time ever. The other scores seemed totally unaffected by that card also going to statement.
Then we were traveling and I paid off all cards and forgot to put on a small purchase on one card, and all of them were at $0. Which is why 2 of my scores dropped, but one of them by a whooping 25 points! Is that normal? In the past it was always 10 or 11. The third score (Experian) was, as always, unaffected.
All my credit cards report to all the bureaus, at least that's what my credit reports state, which I check monthly.
My questions are: Is 25 points unusual? Or does it come back when I let my card go to statement with a balance again.
And if you happen to know, why is my Experian score unaffected by most changes, but responsive to this one card? I looked through the report, and it seems to be like the others. It's also my lowest score. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you so much!
Either the Capital One or the Discover is fine as the balance-reporting card.
The score changes you're seeing may not be connected to the balance reporting events to which you are referring.
@PastaThing wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:Welcome @PastaThing
It appears its a how many of your cards are reporting. If none report a balance. You'll get the all zero penalty. If all cards report a balance. Almost the same thing. Where you getting your scores? How many cards do you have? Need a bit more info.
Hello! Thanks so much!
I am getting my scores from my myFico membership. I have 3 cards: 1 still secured Harley Davidson ($300), one Capital One ($3300), and one Discover ($1500).
The card I usually let go to statement (Capital One), only seems to affect two scores (Equifax and TransUnion) has a $3300 limit on it, and I stay under 20% utilization, usually much less. The Harley Davidson has a $300 credit limit, and when I accidentally let it go to statement with $12 on it, my Experian Score went up a few points for the first time ever. The other scores seemed totally unaffected by that card also going to statement.
Then we were traveling and I paid off all cards and forgot to put on a small purchase on one card, and all of them were at $0. Which is why 2 of my scores dropped, but one of them by a whooping 25 points! Is that normal? In the past it was always 10 or 11. The third score (Experian) was, as always, unaffected.
All my credit cards report to all the bureaus, at least that's what my credit reports state, which I check monthly.
My questions are: Is 25 points unusual? Or does it come back when I let my card go to statement with a balance again.
And if you happen to know, why is my Experian score unaffected by most changes, but responsive to this one card? I looked through the report, and it seems to be like the others. It's also my lowest score. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you so much!
25 points is not unusual for the all zero penalty.
The points come back as soon as a card reports a balance.
You're probably reading too much into the difference between EX and the other 2.
Done the same thing and lost 22 points ... got'ta love how it all works? 
@PastaThing wrote:
@SouthJamaica wrote:
@PastaThing wrote:
@FireMedic1 wrote:Welcome @PastaThing
It appears its a how many of your cards are reporting. If none report a balance. You'll get the all zero penalty. If all cards report a balance. Almost the same thing. Where you getting your scores? How many cards do you have? Need a bit more info.
Hello! Thanks so much!
I am getting my scores from my myFico membership. I have 3 cards: 1 still secured Harley Davidson ($300), one Capital One ($3300), and one Discover ($1500).
The card I usually let go to statement (Capital One), only seems to affect two scores (Equifax and TransUnion) has a $3300 limit on it, and I stay under 20% utilization, usually much less. The Harley Davidson has a $300 credit limit, and when I accidentally let it go to statement with $12 on it, my Experian Score went up a few points for the first time ever. The other scores seemed totally unaffected by that card also going to statement.
Then we were traveling and I paid off all cards and forgot to put on a small purchase on one card, and all of them were at $0. Which is why 2 of my scores dropped, but one of them by a whooping 25 points! Is that normal? In the past it was always 10 or 11. The third score (Experian) was, as always, unaffected.
All my credit cards report to all the bureaus, at least that's what my credit reports state, which I check monthly.
My questions are: Is 25 points unusual? Or does it come back when I let my card go to statement with a balance again.
And if you happen to know, why is my Experian score unaffected by most changes, but responsive to this one card? I looked through the report, and it seems to be like the others. It's also my lowest score. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you so much!Either the Capital One or the Discover is fine as the balance-reporting card.
The score changes you're seeing may not be connected to the balance reporting events to which you are referring.
The reason I think the score changes are related to the balance reporting is because that's how the "MyFico" alerts shows them. Their reports are something like "Your balance has decreased by $20, your score has dropped 11 points". They're also the only changes to my usual activity.
Thank you for your suggestions!
Yes I know it's confusing, but the MyFICO alerts don't provide reasons for a score change. There are certain events which trigger MyFICO alerts. If there happens to be any difference between your present score at that particular bureau and the previous score reported to you from that bureau, the score change is tacked on to the alert. There is not necessarily any connection at all between the score change and the alert substance.
MyFICO explains this as follows:
Why did my score go up when I got an alert for something negative (or why did my score go down when I got an alert for something positive)?
The short answer: Your FICO® Score may change because of other events not monitored by an alert.
Whenever we send you a credit alert, we also send an updated FICO Score. To ensure you get the most current score, we calculate it based on your entire credit report at that point in time—not just the new information on the alert. This means your new score may reflect other changes that are outside of the things we watch for (see everything we monitor).
Sometimes you may see your score increase when you think it should’ve decreased, and vice-versa, but you’ll always have your most up-to-date and accurate score.
https://support.myfico.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038084633