So exactly a month and 5 days after our application for a joint bank account, I receive an e-mail alert from Credit Expert, saying a change was detected in my credit report.
None of the options on the left sounded particularly encouraging I must say, and I knew, I just knew that my credit score must have taken a dive. How deep a dive was what was yet to be determined.
Apparently, there are a whole range of actions that could affect your credit score negatively – and they don’t have to be negative actions like missing a payment. Matt Hughey’s credit rating dropped remarkably when he paid off a credit card he had since University, and closed the account. Commenters said that the problem was not paying off the card, but actually closing the account, so it’s about understanding the game, not just doing what you think is the right thing.
In my case, I found out that the ‘activity’ was opening the joint account – this reduced my credit score by 44 points! I don’t know how these guys allocate points – I thought they would deduct 1 – 3 points at a time, but it turns out they are on a different operating scale as the driving license point removers so I’m just ‘looking at them’ and trying to find more credit-boosting actions. Any suggestions?
