lost 30 points & need help finding out why

[mt2va]

Okay I need some help.  I thought I was doing well & decided to pull my EQ score from here (FICO).  It went from 625 down to 595 in 3 months.  Any ideas what may have caused this and what I need to do to fix this & start heading back up again?

 

I still have the same baddies as before so that has not changed.  (2 old CC charged off over 3 years ago & 1 90/120 day late from Sallie Mae 3 ½ years ago that they will not GW off) 

 

I have added several new CC accounts & re-fi my car loan.  Everything except one account is currently reporting.  They are all showing paid on time.  Is the score hit solely from the new accounts??  I know I’ve read of people on here doing app sprees & adding 5 or 6 accounts & barely losing any points.

 

I don’t think my AAoA has suffered too much either.  I calculated before & after I re-fi my car loan & it was little change adding that TL.  The only account I’ve added since then is 1 CC. 

[XAVIERSMAMA]

How many is "several"?  You'll get hit for all those inquiries and AAofA will probably dip as well.  If you re-fied your auto, did the old auto close and a new auto open?  That would hit the AAofA also.  What is the util on these new cards you added?  With so much activity going on it's hard to say what specifically caused your score to drop, but the combo of new inquiries, decreased AAofA, and with possibly higher util if your accounts are posting balances close to the limit might add up to 30 pts.

[creditwherecreditisdue]

Are you scores FICO's? Were they obtained from the same source?

What was/is your AAoA and UTIL %?

[mt2va]

Okay to start with both scores were FICOS for EQ from this website.  626 in June & 595 now.  (ouch)

 

Yes the old auto loan is showing closed & paid off.  It took about a month for that to happen.  Nuvell really dragged their feet on the whole re-fi process but I expected no less from a company that was charging me 21+% interest. 

 

New accounts:  NFCU Visa, NFCU MC, Sears CC, and Best Buy CC.  Plus the new auto loan with NFCU & LOC.  (LOC is not reporting yet)  Obviously my utilization on my auto re-fi installment loan is high although I’ve already made 3 payments on it so it is coming down.  (I’m paying extra each month)  Best Buy is the highest on utilization as I just bought a computer there a couple weeks ago & it is already reporting.  I did make a substantial payment though, but it must not have gotten there before they reported.  Utilization on Sears is very low.  (about 15% I think)  Purchased an item with 0% interest/0 payments for a year & will pay off before the time is up. 

 

I can’t find my AAofA before (I had it somewhere & can’t lay my hands on it right now).  Currently it is 4 years after adding all the new accounts. 

 

This is what my report says is not good:

 

• Payment history (this is all the old bad stuff…nothing since 2006 has ever been paid late & even back then only my CC were late NEVER my car loan)
• Amount of debt
• Length of credit history (my Sallie Mae SL are showing as my oldest TL at 9+ years…sadly all my other CC that I paid have since dropped off as I didn’t know to leave them open & closed several over the years….my credit history should really say 19 years as that is how long ago I got my 1st CC)
• Amount of new credit

 

I’m hoping its mainly just the hit of the new accounts starting to report.  I guess this is where I need to leave stuff alone & just continue to pay on time/pay balances down.  I actually had intended to pay off what little bit I have on my CC next month, but had an un-expected $800 bill come up that had to be paid. 

[mt2va]

I don’t think I will ever truly understand the FICO scoring.  I just got a sw alert that my score went up 4 points for having a new inquiry??  I thought that made you go down. 

[creditwherecreditisdue]

If you read the text of your alert fully it very carefully explains that the event which triggered the alert may not be the event that accounts for the score change.

[haulingthescoreup]

Score Watch alert reasons are close kin to newspaper horoscopes and messages in fortune cookies.

If you got a new account from this inq, and if your credit profile "needed" it, it might be from that. It could also be from lowered util, a baddie getting older, an account having a birthday, and so forth.

[mt2va]

I still didn't see anything else except the new inquiry on my report and it didn't stop me from getting approved for a new CC today. 

[mt2va]

I finally calculated my AAofA before and after my 8 new accounts.  Before was 7 years and after just barely 4 years.  I'm assuming that would have moved me to a completely different scoring bucket like I read about on here??  Sad thing is every single account (except my Sallie Mae student loan) that was giving me my age were accounts that I had defaulted or had charged off on. 

[creditwherecreditisdue]

---

@mt2va wrote:
I finally calculated my AAofA before and after my 8 new accounts.  Before was 7 years and after just barely 4 years.  I'm assuming that would have moved me to a completely different scoring bucket like I read about on here??  Sad thing is every single account (except my Sallie Mae student loan) that was giving me my age were accounts that I had defaulted or had charged off on. 

---

I think you've gotten to the heart of it now. AAoA is very important.