Credit score now poor

[Midgey91]

I've just received an alert from Experian and when logging in I have seen that my credit score has significantly reduced from very good to very poor. When looking at why it is due to:

• age of credit accounts has now reduced
• credit balance has increased
• opened new credit account
• made new credit application.

In November/December time I switched energy suppliers and took out a new phone contract. I pay my credit card in full every month (although I very rarely use it).

Surely this would not make my score go down so much?!?

You'd like to think not but I think Experian can be a bit OTT. Have you tried Clearscore ? Its free to use, might show a different score?

Thanks, I will give that one a try and see what it says. I pay all my bills every month on time, I don't have any arrears, the only credit I have is my mortgage. I find it crazy that changing suppliers will affect me so much. The energy is in DP name too so not sure if it has impacted his score.

Sometimes you have to have credit to have good credit , if all you have is a mortgage you may want to consider taking a credit card out ( they are usually interest free for 56 days after purchase) I use mine instead of a debit card pay it off each month so pay no interest and actually earn money back in rewards for using it along side my current account

ClearScore get their information from Experian so that won't make any difference.
It may be because of your new phone contract. It may also go back up again next month. You can always contact Experian and see if they are able to explain it to you.

The only purpose of purpose of a credit score is to obtain more credit. If you don't want to borrow any money in the immediate future I wouldn't worry about it. It should naturally 'correct' itself as time goes on.

Checking your credit score can actually affect your credit rating; as can applying for new credit. If you’ve applied for a phone contract then this will have been logged as a “negative”. Having credit cards but not using them can also negatively affect your score as well. As PP said, start sticking some purchases on your credit card each month and pay them off in full, your credit should bounce back.

You do know your credit “score” doesn’t actually exist? No one sees it apart from you, and that includes potential lenders.