Why does my credit score bounce back and forth over a 30'ish point range?

Question

My credit score seems to bounce back and forth over a 30'ish point gap. I have changed nothing (edit: that I know of).

• I have the same number of credit cards
• I've never had a late payment
• I consistently have an overall credit utilization between 1% and 18%.

In fact, in the most recent reporting on Credit Karma, my overall credit usage was 16%, yet my score dropped by 36 points.

Do they score credit cards separately? For instance, I had ~28% utilization on one card and ~3% utilization on another card.

Answer 1

A few things that may have changed over the time period listed:

• Credit utilization - if you are going from 1-18% this could impact how an algorithm scores you in a sense.

• Credit requests - How often are you having others do credit checks on you? If there are more inquiries, this could impact your score as if dozens of inquiries happen this could raise a red flag.

• Utilities and other possible sources - While you never had card payments be late, is this also true of all your other bills? Perhaps someone else is adding something to your credit report here.