<prompt> Human: 10ish years ago I opened a credit card and was reckless with it. Didnt pay my bills on time and had a 3k rent that I didnt pay on for about a year while in school. Once I graduated school 2 years ago and started making good money I paid it off in two payments, closed the account, and started doing things yo rebuild my credit such as getting a 500 loan from the bank and having it pay itself off within 6 months. My score came up to 688 with no credit cards opened, I havent missed a payment on anything in two years but it seemed to just stay at 688, so I decided to open a new credit card because I had heard it instantly increaseas your score by several points. So I reopened a card with the same credit card company and my credit score dropped to 642 and all the missed payments that werent showing on my credit report are now there again in red and my 100 ontime bill pay dropped to 85. I dont know why this happened and Im not sure what to do about it.  <response>: Your score was going to take a hit because you had a hard pull done to open the credit card. Youve also lowered your Average Age of Accounts as well. The AAoA is a factor in FICO scores with older accounts adding points and new accounts taking away. As long as you pay by the due date every month, you might start to see it creep up again in the next few months. Just give it some time. 