why is it that when you are debt free and pay stuff off monthly (yeah, I get it on the interest they lose) that your credit score goes down?

like most other stuff lately, this makes no sense.

my experian from just now.

775
VERY GOOD
-4 POINTS

my overall score is right at 800 so not worried but this seems goofy to me.

Comparing reports from Apr 3 and Apr 29

COULD HELP
Your credit utilization decreased by 7%
Your credit utilization decreased from 7% to 0%, which usually means you paid down your balance or increased your credit limit. Generally the lower your utilization, the better—provided that you regularly use your credit.


Amount of debt makes up 30% of your score.


COULD HELP
Your total balance on all accounts decreased
Your balance decreased $2,697 since your previous report, not including derogatory or collection accounts. You may or may not see a score change, since this balance is associated with other factors that affect your score.


COULD HELP
The balance of 1 account decreased
ACCOUNT
DECREASED
CAP1
$2,697

If you don't play their game, they will penalize you. Musk and Bezos probably have a similar score to you.

well, hell, at least I am in good company.

I got turned down for a Home Depot card due to lack of credit history I haven't paid interest on cards in years pay everything off monthly.

Your credit score is really a debt score the higher the score the more you are able to go into debt.

A couple of years back I need to get a new to be truck so I went to the credit union I bank with I was approved for a loan and started looking and then I checked with my insurance company USAA. Well USAA came back with a lower interest rate so I went back to the credit unit to see if they would match it and they wouldn’t. Their reasoning was that I didn’t have a recent vehicle loan! They had my yearly salary, the amount available my checking account which was almost my yearly salary and they wouldn’t budge. The funny thing is for the next month they would call offering a vehicle loan and whenever I went into a location the same thing and I literally laughed at them.

My credit card co. will poop when they find out I now make $50,000 a year.

exactly how I look at it, pay off the cards monthly or at least before interest starts up.

I experimented with this 6 months ago. My business credit card was getting paid down to zero on a weekly basis. I allowed a balance to carry over for a month, and paid when due. I did that for three months. They notified me that my credit score had increased. I went back to paying off the balance every week, and all of a sudden they doubled the credit limit on the card.

Here is the trick to the credit rating scam.
Pay your statements AFTER they post (i.e. statement ending 4/15....pay a few days after). Be sure to always pay the entire statement off before the due date. This avoids interest. Most companies will give you almost a month before it is actually due.
The reason to wait to pay until after the statement date is so that it posts to the credit rating companies.
We do it all the time, never pay interest, have perks/points/cash back, and have great credit.

The LEAST we should all be doing is using a CC to pay at the pump, then pay off each month as I described. My friend likes to use his debit card at the pump.....he's had to get two new ones in the last year due to skimming.