Credit scores - why fluctuating so much?
 

So I happened to notice my credit score taking 30 point swings on a month to month basis with extremes being almost 50 points top to bottom over the last two years.

Trying to understand why this is given:

1. We have zero debt
2. We pay all our credit cards off at the end of every month.
3. We don't miss or are late on payments.
4. Our credit is frozen so there are no checks or new cards added for 5+ years.

Any idea why its so variable?

They consider your monthly credit card bill. Even though you pay it off every month, if the ratio of credit card debt to total debt changes, so does your credit score.

I considered that as we use CC for literally everything.... I should see if that correlates to our monthly spending.

Believe it or not, zero installment debt shaves points. If you have no debt month to month, your credit card/total debt ratio is atrocious.

+1

The funny thing is that there is no standard for the scores. The one you get from the credit card statement or the credit bureau is different from the one the banks & lenders use. Even there, one reporting agency comes up with a different score than another even though they use the same data. Each one has their own secret formula. Credit scores are part data, part Ouija board.

Yep, I heard that if you're getting a mortgage, it's a different score than if you request it yourself to "check" your score. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that there are 2 or 3 different scores. The whole thing is a racket.

My score is 787 every month, other than one month. I have no debt of any kind. My one and only credit card balance is always about $600 which gets paid off in full each month. Limit is $31,000.

The one month that it dropped (20 points) was.when I had $3500 in charges. I paid it off in full though the total was picked up prior to pay off.

Interesting...Credit Karma shows my TransUnion score as 806 and my Equifax score as 810. My Credit Union is showing me 844, noting "FICO® Score 9 based on Equifax data". Capital One shows my score as 806, noting "FICO® is a different credit score model than the one we use for CreditWise, which is the TransUnion VantageScore 3.0 credit score.

Is there any wonder why I do most of my banking thru my Credit Union?

Just got F'd over big time. Wife bought a new Lexus. They said they would setup auto pay. She opted to do online billing. Well guess what? They didn't setup the auto pay. Mother@#$@#$@ ended up reporting non-payment and we got dinged. SO pissed.

This.

My credit score jumps up and down and the only variable is how much the credit card balance is. I too pay mine off for the statement balance every single month for the last 10 years or so.

I have two credit cards. One for personal use, and one for the business. If we have to fly a few long missions the gasoline bill alone can be a grand per day. It can be 20K in a single month. It gets paid off every month and we pay zero interest. My personal credit score will jump and down from high 770s to 825. Nothing changes except the balance on the credit card, and the slow decrease on the airplane loan.

I can't imagine wanting an expensive toy like an Cessna 182T without a business to pay for every time the engine starts. I guess it is no worse than most weekend warriors race cars for fun. Big boy toys.

Honestly I don't care one wit about my credit score. I have liquid funds, and no need for a loan. The only debt I have is the airplane, and it has increased in value since we bought it. It makes us money, so it is a real business asset.

Also good points.

It started when we just paid off our house.

It really doesn't matter to me as we don't need to borrow - but looking at the history its just weird to me.

No idea what my credit score is...don't care because the only credit I use is card credit I pay off in full when the bill comes. No need to borrow money.

Yeah I'm not really sure why I care much either.

Not really any major purchases forseen in my future save retirement move potentially.

You could try calling the lender to see if they'll remove the late payment from your credit reports. If they can see your wife set up auto pay, it should be a no brainer. If they can't, chances are against getting any love.

You should have paperwork you had to sign authorizing the autopay. Send a copy to the dealer AND the credit bureaus (certified mail).

Edit: as said above, if your wife has been making payments then there are no delinquent payments and they falsified a report that hurts your reputation. Lowlife lawyers love cases like this.

I'd erase that. It could be interpreted as you saying you are doing a tax write off on a personal toy. There 82k new IRS agents out there wanting to prove their worth and looking for a promotion.

This. Let's say you have $10,000 in credit limits and one month the bills total $1,500. The next month they total $3,500- your score will be lower because they report the statement balance to the bureaus.

If you want a higher score, you can raise your credit limits so the percentage of available credit increases (ideally without a hard credit pull). Or, you can make a payment BEFORE the statement comes out so the balance reported is smaller.

Supposedly your score it the highest with about 5% of your limit owed on the statement.

FICO was developed as a predictor of bankruptcy and morphed into a lending tool.

Why do I care?
Putting aside financing a new car, boat, whatever... your insurance rates are affected. Future employers look at scores.

I and the Chief Sandwicher are in competition over our scores. We keep track. Mine has dropped below 810 only once in the last 8 years. That was when I put 100% of a major fence project on plastic.

She maintains a HELOC so she keeps winning.

900 is possible. I've seen it a couple of times (not my FICO).