[toeser]

Originally Posted by ColdNoMore

Like I'm sure many others do, I subscribe to myFICO (which covers Equifax/TransUnion/Experian) primarily for their alerts in case of identity theft or someone opening an account in my name, but the only "alerts" I get are ones showing a change in one of my accounts (almost always my credit card).

Since I do all my banking online, I will often just transfer funds from checking to my credit card pretty much as soon as it posts...instead of waiting until end of the billing period. I do this frequently, but only some of these show up as an "alert."

While I've had screwy alerts telling me my credit score has changed for years now, it seems that it mostly will go down when a balance is reduced and go up...with an increased balance.

I understand that they use complicated/detailed algorithms to establish these scores, that length of account and paying charges on time and regularly are important, but I just had one that I'm still scratching my head over.

The reason being, how in the heck can a $5 decrease in an account result in a score (Equifax) going down 10 points and a $1,455 account increase (paid off as quickly as it posted)...raise my score by 11 points?

It makes absolutely no sense.

Join the club. We have not had any debt for probably 30 years, except credit card charges which get paid in full monthly. I think I had one late payment (oversight) about 25 years ago. We own two homes outright. Yet our credit score jumps up and down by as much as 20 points, with seemingly no change in anything we do. It has never been higher than 816. Their algorithms need work.

Knowing I will never use credit again, I have frozen all of our credit agency accounts for safety.