Why has my credit score gone down after 2 accounts were closed and settled!?

[Lucky4Seven]

After a long uphill struggle with Capital One, they finally relented and accepted a request to write off my 2 accounts and to mark as 0 balance and settle at the credit reference agencies.

Before my credit score was around 526, today after the credit reference agency were notified, my score dropped down to 502.

I cannot understand why such a credit score drop considering the balance is 0 and both accounts have been marked as settled?

I'd have though that the credit score should go up and not down?

I'm very confused.

[Amethyst]

You and me both - one of mine went up when one of my settled accounts got falsely re-entered as a live default ... driving me mad at the moment.

Anyway, the scores are pretty irrelevant and the algorithms that calculate them are just a mystery but take into account everything on the file - so balances vs credit limits vs payments made - whether things are live or closed - changes to the file can bump it down - as can applications - associations etc. When I had got all mine settled off ( March was the last one ) I was quite excited and expected my score to go up ... but it dropped .... however it soon rose again and everything was looking much improved at the end of July ( not sure where things are actually at at the moment due to Hoist messing things up ) so I'd give it a couple months. My Experian plummeted by 150 points last update and the only new activity was a settled account being added under 'closed', I'm hoping that goes back up next month or two.

If youre applying for a mortgage etc they will often look at the file manually if there are known issues - but they do prefer things to have been settled a few months before an application. Are you keeping an eye on all three cra's?

Noddle seems to fluctuate quite a lot with the weekly updates so I'd try only check that monthly with the others. Last 3 weeks it's been 555, 524, 536 ... ughhh lol

Soneone else might have have something more definitive but thought I'd post as we're similarly confused by it all lol - it's easy to get a little obsessive especially when you're trying to get a mortgage.

[Amethyst]

Debt Camel wrote an article a while back ( https://debtcamel.co.uk/credit-score-change/ ) but it's not set in stone what actually happens of course as so many different factors in play.

[Lucky4Seven]

You and me both - one of mine went up when one of my settled accounts got falsely re-entered as a live default ... driving me mad at the moment.

Anyway, the scores are pretty irrelevant and the algorithms that calculate them are just a mystery but take into account everything on the file - so balances vs credit limits vs payments made - whether things are live or closed - changes to the file can bump it down - as can applications - associations etc. When I had got all mine settled off ( March was the last one ) I was quite excited and expected my score to go up ... but it dropped .... however it soon rose again and everything was looking much improved at the end of July ( not sure where things are actually at at the moment due to Hoist messing things up ) so I'd give it a couple months. My Experian plummeted by 150 points last update and the only new activity was a settled account being added under 'closed', I'm hoping that goes back up next month or two.

If youre applying for a mortgage etc they will often look at the file manually if there are known issues - but they do prefer things to have been settled a few months before an application. Are you keeping an eye on all three cra's?

Noddle seems to fluctuate quite a lot with the weekly updates so I'd try only check that monthly with the others. Last 3 weeks it's been 555, 524, 536 ... ughhh lol

Soneone else might have have something more definitive but thought I'd post as we're similarly confused by it all lol - it's easy to get a little obsessive especially when you're trying to get a mortgage.

On the same note, when I checked with my free score with Experian, that went up from 102 to 118.

I am so confused as they are all reporting on the same issues, yet give totally different credit scores.

But my next question is, how do I now get any credit with these 2 accounts being marked as settled?

I only have a default now with NewDay Ltd which was marked on 12th June, but because they have agreed that they will no longer chase me for payment, I have asked them if they would be willing to show the default as being mark "satisfied" to show this.

How can I improve my credit score with only 1 recent default showing?

[MIKE770]

credit score - a company (Lender) have their own scoring proceedure/criteria, so chance of looking at score on CRA is negative, CRAs hope you pay to get tn increased, only benefit is their pockets