My wife and I have always had an excellent credit score - it's been above 840 for years. But we noticed a pretty big drop in November and another drop in December, even though nothing has really changed as far as we can tell. No outstanding bills or new lines of credit. How can we find out what's going on? Who can we talk to?

Get a copy of your credit report ASAP. You’re entitled to one free report a year. Be sure your identity hasn’t been stolen.

You could write everything I know about credit on the head of a pin with a Sharpie.

Bearing that in mind, I'm pretty sure a long stretch without using credit can affect your score negatively.

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But we noticed a pretty big drop in November and another drop in December …

How much?

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Originally posted by PHPaul:

Bearing that in mind, I'm pretty sure a long stretch without using credit can affect your score negatively.

A long with paying off/down debt. I just paid off my car, and my score took almost 100 point drop.

ARman

Yeah, it was a year early, and like 98 points.

I wasn't happy about that.


ARman

Unless some scum stole my info and applied for stuff, I couldn't care less about this credit score game. So, check with the credit bureaus as suggested above.

Here is an example of the bullshit score game. WF offers free credit score from Experian's data, and mine (from WF) is 20 points higher than the score on Experian's website.

Have you paid off any debt, or cancelled any cards?

Closing out longstanding accounts lowers your score.

Reducing your overall available unused credit amount also lowers your score.

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Have you paid off any debt, or cancelled any cards?

I have $300 left on a $4300 personal/debt-consolidation loan. I expect my >800 credit score to drop a little when this is paid off. Paying off my car in 2011 did nothing for my score, either way. One would think successfully paying off a loan - and a little early - would count for something.

The OP is being awfully short on specifics and backstory here.

Yep, mine dropped 12 points. It's probably because I don't have any debt that I'm managing. Then again, it may have been that reply tweets to Jenna Griswold. Haven't gotten a CC offer in the mail for awhile. Last one I signed up for gave me $200 to buy a gun.

Mine went down when the house was paid off.

Go figure.

Don't worry at all if it's 800 or above, or even above 740.
They look at a range and it can vary every month for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with y9our bill paying.
FICO is the one that counts.

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Originally posted by Leemur:
Get a copy of your credit report ASAP. You’re entitled to one free report a year. Be sure your identity hasn’t been stolen.

Its actually once a week now. I was astonished when I checked annualcreditreport.com and saw that.

The reason why I checked? I noticed my score drop from a perfect 850 to 740 due to a "seriously delinquent account." I was bewildered on that and pulled the report and it was a GM Card I was an authorized user on my parents' card so I could use the GM Points. Well, they have both died, with my mom the most recent. The card has had a zero balance for decades. I had called Synchrony to report my mom had passed and the account can be closed. What had Synchrony done? They noted the account as a CHARGE OFF, when it had a zero balance. I've been round and round with them on this and had to elevate it to a manager for her to correct the credit and am waiting out the change to be noted in the credit bureaus.

I have always thought being an authorized user on a card only gets you the good (long credit history and reduced debt to borrowing ratio) not any of the bad. They said now when anything bad happens on the card, it hits every SSN tied to it and when someone passes away that is how they close the account, regardless if there is no balance.

Mine dropped about 30 points after paying off the house. Still above 800 but WTF.

Ours dropped about 50 points when we paid off a car loan last month.

Only had the loan for 4 months, the Toyota dealer wouldn't let me pay cash because I was an out of state buyer. Oh, and I needed to keep the loan for at least 6 months (so they made their money, I'm sure).

I get there (2nd of the month) to do the paper work and they had already dated and filled out everything for the end of the last month. Couldn't add anything to my deposit as an additional down payment.

So I get home and sent Toyota about 90% of the loan balance and the rest over the next 3 months. Never heard a word from the dealer, not that I'll ever be back there.

Why do you guys get all worked up about some arbitrary number in a game these credit companies want you to keep playing?

All my credit card issuers (American Express, Capital One, Chase, Elan Financial) have credit scores and reports, updated weekly or more, for the asking. Check yours and look for anything unusual.

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Why do you guys get all worked up about some arbitrary number in a game these credit companies want you to keep playing?

Depending on how much and why - which we still haven't heard from - it might matter.

What's a 'credit score'?

Do I need one?

If so, how do I get one?

BTW, we don't owe anyone a dime, and apart from a mortgage, paid off 24 years ago, we never have.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tacfoley,

Mine took a big hit when we paid off the house. That was the only debt we had. I couldn't care less, as I don't plan to incur any more debt, so the score itself is meaningless to me. The criteria they use to determine it are clearly idiotic.