reports and major score drop...

[Anonymous]

checked our score on free credit report.com to see if any progress on paying off reports were.. and they went WAAAAYY down. Im really upset.. i checked with a LO two weeks ago and my scores were 597 611 613 my husband were 587 588 631    the only difference is we paid off one credit card.. and my student loan accounts showed up.. thats in... i know we are at high util right now..like 90% util.. but still.. thats the same as when our reports were reported two weeks ago. whats with the drop? how much can our scores increase by paying off all the CC and leaving one at 5% util... im really shocked by this??? any ideas.

[haulingthescoreup]

OK, now I know you know that the scores you pulled today are FAKO's, and they can't be compared to the FICO's that your lender presumably pulled, right?

I suppose that if you knew your old FAKO's, and all three new FAKO's were way lower, there might be cause for concern.

If not, you're comparing apples to carburetors. There is simply no match whatsoever between the "credit scores" from freecreditreport-dot-com and your FICO's.

[Anonymous]

im so dumb, lol.. apparently i havent learned anything.. because i didnt knwo the difference.. the reports were all accurate.. but the only difference is the student loans show up on my report.. and a CC balance is lower... are these even comparable to real fico scores? also, how much can those student loans for 4775 lower my score? thanks for the help, i am still such a newbie.

[haulingthescoreup]

I'm sorry, my reply sounded snarky, and I didn't mean it to be.

FAKO's do not reliably correspond to FICO's in any way, shape or form. But the reports from these monitoring services can be very useful. The trick is to click on the report tab and not on the score tab.

The SL's probably won't hurt much, especially after you make the first payment on them. They are installment util, not revolving util, so they won't affect the revovling util, which is an important driver of FICO scores. Paying off a CC always helps, unless you've paid off all your CC's. The FICO scoring formula likes to see one CC with a minimal balance, which you would then pay off immediately, before the due date, of course.

[Anonymous]

so my scores should be relatively the same then? since two weeks ago since nothing has changed? but paying off CC will jump it up? i was SOOO worried when i saw the fake drop