TIL paying $35 for a credit monitoring app still let my score drop 60 points

I signed up for one of those fancy credit monitoring apps last year. Paid $35 a month for it and felt all safe and smart. Then I forgot to pay a $12 gym membership fee that I thought I cancelled. The app sent me a push notification about it three days after the late payment hit my report. By then my score had already dropped 60 points from 740 to 680. The app charged me $420 over the year to tell me about stuff after it happened. Has anyone else had a monitoring service actually catch something before it hurt their score?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_simon6d ago

Wait, are you sure the late payment actually caused the full 60 point drop? Sometimes the utilization ratio shifting from a card being reported can mess with your score more than a single late payment would.

skyler_white6d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, @the_simon, are you saying the utilization might have spiked because that card's balance hit the report at the same time as the late payment went through? Like, if they paid it off late but the statement cut with a high balance right when the late flag hit, that combo could tank the score worse than just the late alone. Any way to check which factor was the bigger piece of that drop?