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How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

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Joesh
New Contributor

How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

Yesterday I paid off my honeymoon cruise in full with my new AMEX BCP. $2200 cruise payment, $5000 credit line. As soon as I saw the cruise payment pending on my AMEX card I paid $2150 from my savings account onto my AMEX so I wouldn't show such a huge balance on the card for a long period of time, especially not on my first close date.

 

Well, my payment posted first! Now my balance on my AMEX card is over negative $2000, lol.

 

I was wondering - has anyone ever experimented with how something like that would impact a credit score? What if your overall utilization was -2%, lol.

AMEX BCP : $30K | Citi Forward : $15K | Citi Dividend : $14K | BoA Travel Rewards : 7K | NFL Cash Rewards : $6K | Chase Freedom : $10K | Discover IT : $6.5K | AMEX BCE: $5k | Age: 26 | Occupation: Grad Student | CreditKarma: 800TU/812EQ |
Message 1 of 6
5 REPLIES 5
Roarmeister
Frequent Contributor

Re: How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

Interesting thought as I have never had more than a few dollars overpaid anything.  But unless your AMEX account is due for your monthly statement very soon, it is more likely they won't report a negative balance at all - more likely a zero balance.  And therefore no difference to your utilization.

Starting Score: EQ 732 October 2007; Current Score: EQ 839; TU 865, July 2022;
Oldest Reporting EQ Account: 20.4 years; EQ AAoA: 9.9 years;
ACTUAL Oldest account 40.1 years; ACTUAL AAoA 19.3 years.





Message 2 of 6
kimmiller112
Frequent Contributor

Re: How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

Any time this has happened to me, such as returning something after I've paid the bill, it has reported as $0.

Barclays USAir World MC $8300 - DCU $7500 - USAA World MC $7000 - PayPal Extras MC (GE) $5500 - Chase Saphire Preferred $5000 - Discover It $6000 - Barclays Sallie May $2700 - Chase Freedom $1000 - Capital One $8500 (business) - store cards ranging from $500-$9500
Message 3 of 6
webhopper
Moderator Emeritus

Re: How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

Mine has always reported as zero, even when there was a credit on the account
FICO 9:
Filed Chapter 13 on 6/1/2017 after job loss. Discharged 6/1/2022.

Goal: Gardening!


Message 4 of 6
kevinjjc
Valued Contributor

Re: How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?

As others have mentioned, it will report as a zero balance.

Message 5 of 6
HiLine
Blogger

Re: How would a NEGATIVE balance affect credit scores?


@kevinjjc wrote:

As others have mentioned, it will report as a zero balance.


+1

 

Message 6 of 6
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