Why Does My Credit Score Change So Often?

If you monitor your credit score, you may be like this reader — scratching your head wondering why it changes so often.

Here’s this week’s reader question:

My Discover card started providing my credit score free each month. What I don’t understand is why it was 814 one month, then 794 the next and now it is 803. Nothing has changed in my life. I didn’t open up any new credit cards, my home has been paid off since 2004 and my car was paid off in 2007. I pay all my bills each month in full and on time. So why the fluctuation in my credit score?

While I have to tip my hat to Discover for doing what’s right — providing free credit scores — seeing your credit score too often, as well as from too many sources, can create confusion.

What’s in Your Credit Score

The credit score offered by Discover to its cardholders is the one of the most widely used credit scoring model, the FICO score. Here are the components FICO says go into that credit score:

Payment history is 35%. That’s whether you’ve paid your bills on time.
Level of debt is 30%. How much debt you have, how much you’ve borrowed relative to your limits, and a few other factors.
Length of credit history is 15%. That’s how long your accounts have been established.
Types of credit is 10%. The mix of credit you have, including revolving accounts, installment loans, mortgage loans, etc.
Recent inquiries is 10%. Opening several accounts within a short period can lower your score.

Keep in mind that your credit score is based on your credit history, so anytime something changes in your history, your score can change as well.

You’re entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the big three credit reporting agencies by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.

I’m Not Changing. Why Is My Credit Score?

If I take several pictures of you in the course of an afternoon, would you look exactly the same in all of them? You’ll look basically the same, but there will be subtle differences. Your hair, your posture, your clothes — things are going to change slightly that might alter your appearance.

Your credit score is like that. It’s a snapshot, a picture of your credit taken at one second in time.

If you use credit cards, your balance is always changing. If the snapshot is taken before you pay your bill, you’ll show a balance. Immediately after, you won’t. If you have a mortgage or car loan, the principal drops every time you make a payment. With every passing month, the length of your credit history grows, and closed accounts carry a little less weight.

In short, credit scores are messier than they may appear. Even when you’re standing still, your credit history isn’t. While the factors above suggest your credit score is a simple mix of five components, it’s computed using a complex, proprietary algorithm whose precise components and weighting are known only to the credit scoring model.

Should You Care?

It’s natural to think that if we’ve done things perfectly for decades, we deserve a perfect credit score. Good logic, but perfect scores are exceedingly rare and no score is static.

That’s the bad news, but here’s the good. If you’re not going to apply for credit soon and have a consistently high, albeit slightly fluctuating score, you don’t need to give it a second thought.

This reader, for example, cites three different scores over three months, ranging from a low of 794 to a high of 814. While that presents a cloudy picture to him, to a lender it’s crystal clear. He’s a credit rock star.

While the highest possible FICO score is 850, anything over 760 probably won’t bring faster approvals or lower rates because anything over 760 will earn the best deal from most lenders. Anything above 760 is just bragging rights. And since, according to Bloomberg, 40% of Americans have a 760-plus FICO score, it’s not worth bragging about.

When you should care about your credit score, however, is when you might be borrowing soon. If you’re at or near the magic 760 number, do everything possible to get comfortably above it, especially if you’re borrowing big, like for a mortgage.

Let’s Make This More Confusing

Our reader gets a free FICO score, easily the most popular credit score in the U.S. But it isn’t the only credit score. Equifax has a score that ranges from 280 to 850. TransUnion’s Transrisk score ranges from 300 to 850. The VantageScore 3.0 score ranges from 300 to 850. The Experian PLUS score goes from 330 to 830.

Even your FICO score will differ based on which credit reporting agency’s data — Experian, Equifax or TransUnion — it’s based on. And it gets worse: According to Consumer Reports, FICO serves up 49 different scores to lenders, but only two to consumers. So when you apply for a loan, it’s likely your lender will be looking at a score that’s different from the one you buy.

This post originally appeared on Money Talks News.

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