CLI + Lower Balance = FICO Down?

[A Credit Ed]

This is weird.  My Chase CC balance went from $955 to $0, and my FICO went down 2 points.  Then my Amazon/Synchrony card posted.  Last month I showed a $114 balance on a $900 limit.  This month I show a $0 balance on a $2,700 limit - and my FICO dropped an additional 14 points.

 

Are there new rules?  I haven't been playing the FICO game since our financial disaster in 2014 (I could write a book, How to go from 800+ FICO to sub 550 FICO in 12 months) but things are much better now.  Back then a $0 balance was a good thing for FICO.  But I have noticed multiple times that my FICO drops when I pay off before statement cut date and show balances of $0 across the board.

 

So a CLI from $900 to $2,700, combined with a balance going from $114 to $0, causes a 14 point FICO drop.  This doesn't make sense.

[StarkRaven$]

1 hour ago, A Credit Ed said:

This is weird.  My Chase CC balance went from $955 to $0, and my FICO went down 2 points.  Then my Amazon/Synchrony card posted.  Last month I showed a $114 balance on a $900 limit.  This month I show a $0 balance on a $2,700 limit - and my FICO dropped an additional 14 points.

 

Are there new rules?  I haven't been playing the FICO game since our financial disaster in 2014 (I could write a book, How to go from 800+ FICO to sub 550 FICO in 12 months) but things are much better now.  Back then a $0 balance was a good thing for FICO.  But I have noticed multiple times that my FICO drops when I pay off before statement cut date and show balances of $0 across the board.

 

So a CLI from $900 to $2,700, combined with a balance going from $114 to $0, causes a 14 point FICO drop.  This doesn't make sense.

Are these your only credit cards?. If so the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago when I let zero balance report on the only two cc's I had. The next reporting cycle I allowed $2 to report on one of the cards and my fico went back up.

[hegemony]

2 points? 14 points? these changes are not statistically significant.

[A Credit Ed]

1 hour ago, hegemony said:

2 points? 14 points? these changes are not statistically significant.

True.  But as someone who has spent 4 years climbing from mid 500 to above 700, and aiming for 800, it is annoying.  Really thought I would see >720 once the Amazon CLI showed its pretty head.  BTW hegemony, I haven't been here in years, pretty cool to see your name again.  

 

@ StarkRaven$ - I've currently got 4 cards.  2 Chase, a Discover, and the Amazon.

[hegemony]

59 minutes ago, A Credit Ed said:

True.  But as someone who has spent 4 years climbing from mid 500 to above 700, and aiming for 800, it is annoying.  Really thought I would see >720 once the Amazon CLI showed its pretty head.  BTW hegemony, I haven't been here in years, pretty cool to see your name again.  

 

@ StarkRaven$ - I've currently got 4 cards.  2 Chase, a Discover, and the Amazon.

 

Don't let the vagaries of FICO scoring distract you from the great work you've accomplished!

[shifter]

10 hours ago, A Credit Ed said:

But I have noticed multiple times that my FICO drops when I pay off before statement cut date and show balances of $0 across the board.

$0 across the board has never been a good thing. You need one card at at least $1-2. 

[MP80]

11 hours ago, A Credit Ed said:

But as someone who has spent 4 years climbing from mid 500 to above 700, and aiming for 800, it is annoying. 

Based on my experience with FICO scoring, I can tell you that it is difficult to start at 750 and then climb from there to achieve every point increase. Starting from 780, this is more difficult. Now, this is just revolving credit and has nothing to do with adding installment loans to the credit report.

[cv91915]

19 hours ago, A Credit Ed said:

This is weird.  My Chase CC balance went from $955 to $0, and my FICO went down 2 points.  Then my Amazon/Synchrony card posted.  Last month I showed a $114 balance on a $900 limit.  This month I show a $0 balance on a $2,700 limit - and my FICO dropped an additional 14 points.

 

Are there new rules?  I haven't been playing the FICO game since our financial disaster in 2014 (I could write a book, How to go from 800+ FICO to sub 550 FICO in 12 months) but things are much better now.  Back then a $0 balance was a good thing for FICO.  But I have noticed multiple times that my FICO drops when I pay off before statement cut date and show balances of $0 across the board.

 

So a CLI from $900 to $2,700, combined with a balance going from $114 to $0, causes a 14 point FICO drop.  This doesn't make sense.

Do you have a myFICO subscription?

[A Credit Ed]

1 hour ago, cv91915 said:

Do you have a myFICO subscription?

I am using Experian's service.  They claim they use FICO 8.  Please tell me this ins't a FAKO score.

Edited September 14, 2020 by A Credit Ed
Typo & add sentence

[cv91915]

1 hour ago, A Credit Ed said:

I am using Experian's service.  They claim they use FICO8.

The Experian app does provide FICO 8 scores, but like myFICO you can't assume that a specific score change is tied to any one single change in your credit file (regardless of the timing or content of an alert).

 

Also, FICOs fluctuate quite a bit, even with a perfectly clean file.  

 

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by cv91915

[A Credit Ed]

I dug deeper into my Experian data and found this:

 

Quote

 

What's hurting your score?

Not Using Revolving Credit

There are no recent balances on your revolving and/or open-ended accounts.
 

Your credit report shows no recent balances on your revolving and/or open-ended accounts. People with low balances on their revolving and/or open-ended accounts may represent lower risk to lenders than those with no revolving/open-ended balances.

 

 

 

So, low balances are better than no balances.  

[cv91915]

1 hour ago, A Credit Ed said:

I dug deeper into my Experian data and found this:

 

 

 

So, low balances are better than no balances.  

This is what shifter explained:

 

11 hours ago, shifter said:

$0 across the board has never been a good thing. You need one card at at least $1-2. 

 

[centex]

1 hour ago, A Credit Ed said:

 

So, low balances are better than no balances.  

Which is how the AZEO process came into being.