In our last email, we showed you  what a Rapid Rescore was and how it could help you with a major purchase. This time we’ll look into what you might want to check out if you see a 25 or more point drop in your score in just one month. 

We now know that it’s normal for your score to fluctuate and why, but what happens if you get a large drop quickly, like in just one month?  We suggest you don’t leave that alone, but do get a copy of your current reports and look for the following: 

A payment you sent late or missed completely - This is one of those things that can dump your score fast. Even if you’re on autopay or billpay with your bank, they are not perfect and mistakes happen. Hopefully it is the system that causes the error and you can get that removed and your score updated. To avoid this as much as possible, be sure all your payments are autopay.

Bad information reported - This happens far more often than you’d think.  Many of these processes are human driven and we do make mistakes. Keeping an eye on your report will help keep this from affecting you.

Identity Theft - This kind of fraud is very common. You might spot an account open that you didn’t do. Fortunately, identity theft is recognized by the bureaus and they will remove fraudulent accounts fairly quickly.

A reduction in available credit - Sometimes a credit card company will reduce your limit. This can cause your Credit Utilization Ratio to go up and lower your score. Besides paying down your account balances, there are a few other things you can do to fix this. Check our past emails and you’ll find some good suggestions.

In our next email we’ll go over collection accounts, how they affect your scores and what you can do about them.

Sincerely,