20 point drop in FICO EX-Don't Understand Why

[Anonymous]

For the past couple of months, my Experian FICO score has been 692 and 690.  When I checked creditchecktotal.com on December 13, my score was still 690. Well, I checked today it says 670. 

I haven't had any new inquiries or accounts opened. My total utilization across all credit cards have been 1%. In October, I mistakenly let two cards report a small balance (less than 3% of each card). In November, I got it back down to 1 card reporting a 5% utilization balance on the card, but 1% utilization across all three cards. 

I had six student loans. I paid off one of them that was like $143 in October. But, now I still have 5 student loans that are reporting. I am not required to make payments on them due to Graduated Income Repayment Plan. But I owe maybe 25% of the original balance of the loans now.

No new negative items have hit my reports. 

Am I missing something? Can anyone think of any plausible reason I would have lost 20 points?

I've been working really hard to rebuild my credit and to be so close to 690 and then to have it go down again to 670 is crushing. 

Edited to Add: Logged out and Logged Back in to CCT. Now it says that I have no credit usage/no debt ratio. Whereas, before logging out and in, CCT showed the 1% utilitzation from last month. Could it be that for some reason, they don't see the balance on one of my credit cards and that dropped by score by 20 points? Doesn't make sense. I am so confused here. 

[Anonymous]

Definitely sounds from the reason code that a single balance wasn't reported, and a 20 point loss is pretty typical to be lost if that is the case.  I lose 14-22 points on my profile depending on the bureau. 

The good news is that this is obviously a quick and easy fix... just making sure one balance gets reported and you'll get those 20 points back.  Have you ever tried letting 2 cards report a small balance (as opposed to one)?  Depending on profiles, sometimes 2 won't result in any less points compared to one.  Heck, I can let all of my cards report small balances and I don't lose a single point.  I say this just because it may be easier for you to let 2 report a small balance so that in the off chance that one gets reported 0 you still have the other ensuring you don't lose those 20 points.

[Anonymous]

Thanks BBS!! That really helps!

I knew that reporting $0 for all cards could affect your score. But I didn't know it was by 20 points. My goodness!

My Discover reports tomorrow with the small balance that I left on it. But, I think I will follow your advice to see what happens if I let two small balances report so I don't make this mistake again. This no balance reporting and losing 20 points is for the birds!!!

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

For the past couple of months, my Experian FICO score has been 692 and 690.  When I checked creditchecktotal.com on December 13, my score was still 690. Well, I checked today it says 670. 

I haven't had any new inquiries or accounts opened. My total utilization across all credit cards have been 1%. In October, I mistakenly let two cards report a small balance (less than 3% of each card). In November, I got it back down to 1 card reporting a 5% utilization balance on the card, but 1% utilization across all three cards. 

I had six student loans. I paid off one of them that was like $143 in October. But, now I still have 5 student loans that are reporting. I am not required to make payments on them due to Graduated Income Repayment Plan. But I owe maybe 25% of the original balance of the loans now.

No new negative items have hit my reports. 

Am I missing something? Can anyone think of any plausible reason I would have lost 20 points?

I've been working really hard to rebuild my credit and to be so close to 690 and then to have it go down again to 670 is crushing. 

Edited to Add: Logged out and Logged Back in to CCT. Now it says that I have no credit usage/no debt ratio. Whereas, before logging out and in, CCT showed the 1% utilitzation from last month. Could it be that for some reason, they don't see the balance on one of my credit cards and that dropped by score by 20 points? Doesn't make sense. I am so confused here. 

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You could possibly have lost some points in FICO 8 from paying off one of the loans, if it increased your aggregate installment loan utilization percentage.

[Anonymous]

SJ is correct on this above as well.  Would you mind listing all of your current loan balances and their original balances, including the one(s) you just paid off?  Then we can narrow it down to installment loan utilization or revolver utilization that resulted in your 20 point score drop.

As far as your revolvers go, testing 2 reporting a small balance would be good for a personal data point on your file.  You said you have a small balance reporting soon from Discover; this will give you back your 20 points unless it was installment loan related as SJ indicated could be the case. 

If those 20 points do come back, it would be fun to see if you get any sort of score drop by allowing 2 revolvers to report a balance.  How many total revolvers do you have?  Even if you did take a score hit, it wouldn't be 20 points IMO... maybe 5-10 but those points would be again quickly recovered once you reported 0 again on one of them.  There's a good chance though depending on your profile (number of cards etc) that allowing more than 1 to report a small balance won't impact your scores adversely.

[Anonymous]

Thanks SJ and BBS. I really appreciate both of you and your feed back. Here is the information on my student loans. 

Paid off balance of $143 on original loan amount of $484. The end date is listed as November 14, 2016 (paid it in October, after the due date).

1. 1600 balance original loan amount 4400

2. 3600 balance original loan amount 9800

3. 5300 balance original loan amount 15000

4. 2000 balance original loan amount 5600

5. 2500 balance original loan amount 7600

And it looks like I did some miscalculations before. The loans are at 35% balance due on the original loan amount. 

It doesn't look like the one loan wasn't enough to affect the total loan amount, right? What do you guys think?

I really do hope that once the Discover balance reports, the 20 points will come back. And then I will experiment over the next couple months with letting two balances report. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks SJ and BBS. I really appreciate both of you and your feed back. Here is the information on my student loans. 

Paid off balance of $143 on original loan amount of $484. The end date is listed as November 14, 2016 (paid it in October, after the due date).

1. 1600 balance original loan amount 4400

2. 3600 balance original loan amount 9800

3. 5300 balance original loan amount 15000

4. 2000 balance original loan amount 5600

5. 2500 balance original loan amount 7600

And it looks like I did some miscalculations before. The loans are at 35% balance due on the original loan amount. 

It doesn't look like the one loan wasn't enough to affect the total loan amount, right? What do you guys think?

I really do hope that once the Discover balance reports, the 20 points will come back. And then I will experience over the next couple months with letting two balances report. 

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Yup.  The loan payoff had nothing to do with it.  Where it would have had an effect is if the original amount of the paid off loan was huge.  E.g. a 20k loan originally on which you owed $143 at the time of payoff -- with all your other loans being 1k loans on which you owed most of the balance.

The 20 point dive owed almost certainly to having all cards at $0.  You'll get that all back..

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yup.  The loan payoff had nothing to do with it.  Where it would have had an effect is if the original amount of the paid off loan was huge.  E.g. a 20k loan originally on which you owed $143 at the time of payoff -- with all your other loans being 1k loans on which you owed most of the balance.

The 20 point dive owed almost certainly to having all cards at $0.  You'll get that all back..

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Thanks CreditGuy!!! Makes me feel so much better. I will wait to see what happens when my Discover reports my small balance in the next couple of days. 

That's why I love this MyFico! So much knowlegdge and information here!

[Anonymous]

Definitely let us know once it reports and you pull your scores again.  Also if you're willing to test what happens with 2 cards reporting I'd be very curious to know the outcome with your profile.  I imagine you scores would either stay the same or maybe go down 5 points or so, but nothing significant like to 20 you lost from letting all report 0 balances.  It would be nice to know, with your personal profile, exactly how many cards can report small balances and you not have any loss at all score wise. 

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks SJ and BBS. I really appreciate both of you and your feed back. Here is the information on my student loans. 

Paid off balance of $143 on original loan amount of $484. The end date is listed as November 14, 2016 (paid it in October, after the due date).

1. 1600 balance original loan amount 4400

2. 3600 balance original loan amount 9800

3. 5300 balance original loan amount 15000

4. 2000 balance original loan amount 5600

5. 2500 balance original loan amount 7600

And it looks like I did some miscalculations before. The loans are at 35% balance due on the original loan amount. 

It doesn't look like the one loan wasn't enough to affect the total loan amount, right? What do you guys think?

I really do hope that once the Discover balance reports, the 20 points will come back. And then I will experiment over the next couple months with letting two balances report. 

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No the paid off loan was too small in the context of your file to have any effect.