@Anonymous wrote: 1. In your listing of accounts you should indicate which accounts are closed 2. My Fico score is 768 and your simulator says if I pay off all my accounts I'll be 778-818. Your system knows I pay off all of those accounts entirely every month and have for many, many years (except for one 15 year mortgage). So the simulator has no guidance. The rest of the site suggests closing accounts because I have temporary balances on 7. The simulator should say how many accounts to close (e.g. have just 2 national accounts and 0 department stores - sorry Kohls, Fico thinks you're bad). 3. I refinanced last July and now have 6 credit inquiries from the same event, and 4 from the same company. The auto insurance that I pay in full, so there is no extension of credit, increased my rates because I did a refi last summer and I had a Home Depot card from a remodeling project 2 years ago. No driving violations or claims, but I'm a credit risk even though they're not a creditor and I have a clean history. 4. You still have a long way to go in painting an accurate picture of my profile. Start with tracking accounts that are paid in full every month and saying how many credit cards you think we should have. 5. To anyone watching, lesson learned, just get 2 national credit cards, 1 primary and 1 backup when the primary gets rejected because their systems think its time for a security check. I would like to know what the score would be if I just use debit cards. 6. Your website should do a better job of showing I could send you an email directly. I don't mind sharing, but you could be doing an even better job.    Regarding Item #1:  The open/closed account status (for credit accounts, at least - I don't have anything else on my own reports, so I can't speak for loans and such) is noted in the Details pop-up brought up when you click on the Details link next to the account line item in your main accounts listing page on your report.   Regarding Item #2:  No, it doesn't - the scoring algorithms only 'know' the information reported to the credit bureaus by your creditors.  In the case of credit card lenders, report dates vary somewhat, but if you wait until after your statements cut to pay off your CC balances (as most of the world probably does), then chances are those balances are what's being reported to the bureaus and are the only info the scoring algorithm has to work with.  Before I learned how to manage my own reported utilization better for scoring purposes, I tanked my score WAY down by maxing out a card.  If you're using a large portion of your credit lines, and if your creditors are reporting those balances before you pay them off every month, then yes, it's going to negatively impact your score.  The way to manage that is to pay off balances before they get reported.  There's more info about this on the Understanding FICO Scoring boards and Credit Cards boards.   I'll have to leave it to others to address your remaining items, though the above also partially addresses #4, as well - FICO scoring can only factor in the info it's provided by your lenders, and right now, lenders don't provide info on who pays accounts in full every month.  You can achieve this as I described above, but only if you determine your reporting dates and pay your balances accordingly to ensure zero balances are reported. Hope this helps.     ... View more

@Junejer wrote: I just wanted to stop by and say hello to some old friends. It has been such a long time since I posted (before today that is--kinda went nuts over on Rebuilding).    I am not sure who is still here from three years ago.  Anyway, it's good to see some new leaders stepping up on the forum. ByrdMan!  Nice to see - on my own first visit back in ages - another familiar face! Hope you've been well.  Welcome back! :) ... View more

FWIW, Chase also offers a British Airways Visa card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, and their new cards at least have a chip in them (whether or not this will work at chip-and-pin places in the UK, I don't know, as I've not inquired with them about that yet).   ... View more

Locking this original thread and directing further replies to new thread which has been moved to Understanding FICO Scoring for best response:  Authorized user used to boost score.   Please do not cross-post the same question on multiple boards; instead, if you feel your question would be better off on a different board, please use the Report Abuse function to ask the moderators to move your post.  Thanks!  -Scamp, Mod ... View more

Bump for Memorial Day 2012... ... View more

Scorewatch has always dealt with only Equifax scores, never TU.   ... View more

@lolabelle wrote: @Anonymous wrote: Too many variables to make a more accurate prediction.  For instance one of your creditors could decide to chase your balance and thus make it appear your util or available credit is still low.  Also there is the fact that the higher your score is the harder it becomes to get more points.  I have read about people hitting 800 in a few years and then spending a few more years to gain a mere 10 more pts.  It is like losing weight, the closer you get to your goal, the harder it gets. Too many variables is a good point. It just seems odd to me that manually inputting the "best action" results in a drastically different output, you know? I was actually surprised that the "best action" had to do with my utilization in the first place, as my utilization is already pretty low. By the way, I'm not sure what "chase your balance" means? Chasing the balance is what it's called when creditors keep lowering your credit limit to just above your current balance, every time you make a payment. ... View more

@Anonymous wrote: why is there a duplicate post of this same exact question? Possibly OP came back and couldn't locate the original thread and reposted the question thinking perhaps the first attempt hadn't been successful.    ETA:  Whenever you see something like this, it's best to just let the mods know about it by using the Abuse Report option available on all posts, rather than asking posting on the thread itself, so that we know about it as soon as possible and can take appropriate action.   Locking this dupe thread, though, and asking folks to post their responses to original thread here.   (edited again only to fix a punctuation typo) ... View more

@Anonymous wrote: hi .i use to pre approved for cap 1 cash back green card but last for couple months i dont .i dont know what happened.since cap 1 buying hsbc it hasnt been .any idea? Hi, murat.  Just to make sure we understand correctly what your question is, are you asking if anyone knows why pre-approvals for the Cap1 Cash Back Green card no longer show up for you on their website? ... View more

@Anonymous wrote: Do moderators on this forum get paid? Nope.  Volunteers all.  ... View more

The link to the Backdoor Numbers thread on the Credit Cards board is in my siggy.    Good luck! ... View more

@Anonymous wrote: @Mike360 wrote: i just pay off my statement balance on the due date. I like to show activity so creditors don't close me out and it gives me breathing room to pay off and still not pay any interest. Yeah my FICO score tanks a ding sometimes but i don't really care because i have no plans on applying for anything anytime soon. If you are not applying, your FICO score is irrelevant. Not entirely.  Current creditors do keep an eye on scores, and there are a fair number of stories on here about AA being taken (CLD, closing cards, etc) due to scores that have dropped. ... View more

Locking this duplicate thread and asking those who wish to respond to do so here.     ... View more

Your best bet probably is just to call AmEx and ask them, and/or check whatever materials came with your card, when you got it, as a lot of things like that are addressed in those materials.   ... View more