I talked with a member a couple days ago that was totally frustrated with the credit bureaus and the whole credit scoring process.  Hmmmm…sound familiar?

Jack’s situation was that he had paid off several bills with a bonus check from work about 10 days ago.  He had called the three credit card companies involved and verified he had indeed posted the payoffs which totaled almost $6000.  He then had his mortgage broker pull a new credit report thinking he would have the increase in credit score that he thought the payoffs would give.  He only needed about 17 points to qualify for this loan but was told that his scores had actually gone down 2 points from a month prior.

Well this is what prompted Jack’s call.  He was confused and upset that he had read something I wrote previously about how FICO computes credit scores.  He thought that by freeing up his credit lines and paying down the debt would help his credit scores.   Was he right?