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PIF or multiple monthly pmts on your credit cards? Does it really matter?

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Man-Of-Steel
Established Contributor

Re: PIF or multiple monthly pmts on your credit cards? Does it really matter?


@Revelate wrote:

@CribDuchess wrote:

@NRB525 wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

I usually pay weekly to achieve a low reported util; the one time I let one card report a >30% util my scores dropped by an average of 17 points. Regardless of when you pay (before or after the statement cut) CRs are going to show how much you're running through the cards. If you max out a card but pay in full before the cut it will show how much you paid on that card that month even if the reported util is 0%. This lets creditors determine if you're a revolver or a transactor and also gives them an insight to how much you spend on your cards. 


Could you do me a big favor and post a picture from your credit report of how your credit card looks when you are paying in full before the statement cuts? This would be several months where they list out the Statement Amount, Amount Due, Amount Paid, etc. and you have been hitting those months with usage on the card, but have paid each month in full prior to statement print. And I don't mean from the credit card statement but actually from the credit bureau report.

Thanks


I will grant your favor.  Smiley Happy

 

Fidelity Amex Transactions on Credit Report.JPG


Hey Duchess!  Just quoting you for the hello hah!

 

More generally, while UW's can see this when they pull a credit report, not all creditors report this currently and FICO doesn't make use of it at least in FICO 8 at any rate... and probably not FICO 9 either since there are major lenders who aren't reporting this last time I looked at a base report a couple months ago.

 

Hopefully at some point this gets integrated into FICO as far as use goes and perhaps the $0 balances penalty can be whacked.  I get that $0's across the board led to a different statistical analytics result but we should be able to do better for determining card non-use imo, even if that was just a more consistent implementation of date of last update / reported activity.


I can attest to this.  The screen shot above appears to be taken from an EX report.  I reviewed a recent EX report of mine and I can see that out of all of my creditors, only Barclays is reporting the "actual amount paid" value each month.  Amex, Discover, and Cap One all show "no data" under the actual amount paid column.

Message 21 of 24
celluloid17
Established Contributor

Re: PIF or multiple monthly pmts on your credit cards? Does it really matter?

I PIF multiple times a month via bill pay through my checking account.  I make a payment as soon as a transaction clears and my accounts show a balance of any sort.  I was in debt for a long time and making only minimum payments while my balances grew, so now that I'm debt free, I'm hyper paranoid about carrying balances so it's better for my peace of mind to pay things right away.  Essentially, I treat my credit cards like debit cards and like to see the money I spent on those cards deducted from my bank account right away.  The only card I let a balance report for the duration of a statement cycle is my BOA BBR so that I'll qualify for the quarterly bonus.

Message 22 of 24
takeshi74
Senior Contributor

Re: PIF or multiple monthly pmts on your credit cards? Does it really matter?


@jbsea wrote:

That is why you leave a small balance on you cc to show that it is active.


You may just be selecting words incorrectly but to clarify: you never need to leave/carry a balance for scoring purposes.  You want a balance to report.  Report and leave/carry are not the same thing.  You can pay in full and still have a balance report.

Message 23 of 24
vanillabean
Valued Contributor

Re: PIF or multiple monthly pmts on your credit cards? Does it really matter?


@takeshi74 wrote:

@jbsea wrote:

That is why you leave a small balance on you cc to show that it is active.


You may just be selecting words incorrectly but to clarify: you never need to leave/carry a balance for scoring purposes.  You want a balance to report.  Report and leave/carry are not the same thing.  You can pay in full and still have a balance report.


 

It's not easy! See here and here and here.

 

Message 24 of 24
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