My credit score dropped almost 200 points just from a high balance

[Wowzers]

In 2010 my credit score across the three agencies average 876. Today it is 690, despite the fact that I have had no "dings" against my credit such as late payments. Why so low? As best I can tell it's primarily from one card I have 95% full that I've only been paying the minimums on for the past year or so, and a couple of other higher balance cards. Despite this I'm still only spending about 30% of my available credit.

It's odd how having a good credit score never helped me with anything except getting in debt. I wonder what having a low credit score will help me with? Probably staying out of debt. ;)

[justbroke]

If just one card goes over 7% and you are a so-called FICO "High Achiever", your credit will take a small ding. Going over 75% on any single card, will put you into "maxed out" credit card! (Yes, FICO's latest models think that a single card over 75%, or your average across all revolving accounts, is bad bad bad. They call > 75%... maxed out!)

This is why no single card should ever go over about 30%, and all your reported balanced should likewise stay below 30% on your revolving accounts.

[Pjmax]

Curious about how you had a 876 avg. I know TU's Fico range is 300-850, aren't EX and EQ the same?

[tobee43]

Curious about how you had a 876 avg. I know TU's Fico range is 300-850, aren't EX and EQ the same?

me to Pj, i know we had an 820 prior to this bk and we were told many times it was the highest some companies we applied i.e. for a car loan etc. one of the highest they had seen. FAT chance now LOL!! i don't even know what we are now maybe in the low 700s but i don't really even care anymore. it is what it is and i know i have a ton of clean up to do again because there are a ton of accounts listed as active when they were discharged in the bk. i did it was before cleared it all up, but somehow they creeped back on.

[Pjmax]

My scores have been bouncing around from low to high 600's. I doubt if I have a chance of hitting 700 until maybe 2016 when most of my IIB's drop off, but I'm happy. I've kind of enjoyed watching it all, my new hobby, and I'm on guard for those creepers!

[LadyInTheRed]

Vantagescore ranges from 501-990. Vantage Score was created by Equifax, Transunion and Experian. So, that must be the score Wowzers is thinking, rather than an average. The other scores don't go higher than 850: Transunion 300-850; Equifax 280-850; FICO 300-850. Experian 330-830.

With the differences in score ranges, "averaging" multiple scores is pretty meaningless.

[AngelinaCat]

We also were about 820 or so, higher than Consumer Advocate, Clark Howard, when we filed. Nowadays it is around 620. It was around 670 a year ago, then this year we shopped around for a truck for our god-daughter (bad mistake, but another story) and some of the 'shopping around' involved 'hard pulls' close in succession, so our scores plummeted.

[tobee43]

i know my dh loves howard, just my personally view, but i think he's full of whom every is paying his show as sponsors...example credit karma, not actuate at all and totally miss leading. i'm not saying all his advise is bad, i just find these stories he gives "and let me tell you about the lady that ihad a 35k vacation for $250" are way to much. when it sounds to be good to be truth i one of those that believes it's usually garbage. just like suzy ormand or whatever her name is. she's another one.

again, i just believe time is the ONLY thing and of course not incurring more debt and if you do paying timely is the ONLY way to get one's score back up. i guess that's why i'm praying daily my car holds up! it's old we keep it in excellent shape. while i know there are excellent used cars out there, we are not who we use to be 25 years ago when our car would break down. we need a reliable car at all times, that usually means "new". i don't want to pay 18%!

[Wowzers]

Curious about how you had a 876 avg. I know TU's Fico range is 300-850, aren't EX and EQ the same?

According to my truecredit report from 2010, they were: Transunion = 871 (Grade B), Experian 875 (Grade B), Equifax 880 (Grade B). That might explain why...I suppose now I have to go run my current credit on truecredit to do a proper comparison.

[Pjmax]

As LIR suspected, those are Vantagescores, not Fico scores, and AFAIK, not very relevant to scores most lenders would pull.
There are just so many different scoring models these days, when mentioning your scores, it usually saves time, to state the source of the score, Fico or Fako. If not, someone will surely ask.