why did my score go down so much in 1 month?

[Anonymous]

My fico score went from a 715 to a 687 in 1 month.  I've been shopping for a mortgage so I know i'll have a few inquiries.  nothing has changed, $90 in CC bills same car payments no late payments in the month.  I've tried calling Equifax, Experian and all I get is them trying to sell me something.  how can I find out why this happened

Message Edited by awd250 on 03-19-2009 08:40 AM

[Anonymous]

 You can pull your free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com if you hadn't already pulled them for this year. I'd imagine the inquiries knocked off some points. Is it possible your balances on your creditcards have increased. This will lower your score sometimes dramatically. I wasn't for sure if you were saying your cc bills have only 90 charged or your min payments equal 90. Either way what fico figures for scoring is the amount of your credit limits in relation to what you have charged. ( utilization).

[Anonymous]

I only owe $90 in CC bills all of my finances hasn't changed, only inquiries.  that's why I don't get it.

[Anonymous]

Sorry . So what you are saying by only 90 means that 90 is a lesser amount than the month before? It really matters too according to what the balances listed on your credit reports were at the time of the first score & the time of second score & what your limits are. Most  always their is a reason. If you lay the two reports side by side & compare again & again  something should be found.  You say FICO scores, so I'd assume these scores were gotten either from here or directly from equifax or transunioncs.com. If not its probable one score may be a FAKO & their is no explaining FAKO scores really.  If you subscribe to scorewatch here & dont have a report, then what did the alert say?

[Anonymous]

meaning I only owe $90 total,  i haven't opened up any new cards or closed any.  I looked at my report from equifax.  the only thing i see different are the inquiries.  That's can't be the cause of the 28 point drop right?

[Anonymous]

Yes 28 pts seems like a big decrease for inquiries. This is why I am wondering about the balances you have reported. Is $90 more or less or the same balance that was reported on your first credit report?  So no new accounts have posted as a result of these inquries right? Maybe you were rebuckected? Is there any alerts about recently seeking credit or high use of creditcards? If you have a negative account look to see if they newly reported in Jan 2009 or Feb 2009?

[Anonymous]

last month I owed $120,  what's  rebuckected?  no new accounts, no high use of credit cards, no new negative items.  there's has to be someone I can talk to to evaluate my score right? 

[Anonymous]

My score went down from 711 to 682 last month. There were no alerts or anything telling me why, no late payments, no new accounts or inquiries. I think it is curious that this happened to you as well.

[Anonymous]

Fico groups people together that have similar info & it is refered to here as buckets. I'm not real sure or really even have a good guess what the actual buckets may be. Some here have more knowledge about buckets than I do. You can do a search here for buckets to learn more about it. There may be a bucket though for those who are searching for new credit & those that aren't. I'm sorry but there really isn't anyone at any CRA that can help to explain your score anymore than what you already know.  Did your reports come with an explanation of what is hurting your score?  Does it list the same on both reports?  You say no new neg items , if u have a past item does it show a last reported date of Jan or Feb 2009? Sometimes a score will drop because of an old neg that was last reported in 2003 saying last reported in 200(.

[Anonymous]

that's the thing there's nothing new no new neg items. everything is the same.  This just kills me that my score is so important but nobody at a CRA or myfico.com can tell me why.  It's like here's your score, deal with it!