Utilization Question - 10% and MyFico Says BAD!!!

[Anonymous]

When I pulled my updated scores tonight, I got to the page that lists the good and bad factors affecting my score, and the last item was the follwing;

"You are makng heavy usage of you revolving credit, your current utlization is 10%".  I'm paraphrasing.........but WTH?????  I thought 10% was GOOD and MyFico says it's bad.  This was on my TU score.

Also, my EQ score says my utilization was bad as well and it was at 16%.

Anybody got an opinion?

[haulingthescoreup]

If these were the last items listed on the negative side, it sounds like your reports are in pretty good shape, and FICO is grasping at straws! I've had the identical util percentage show up as good one month, bad the next, and then good again the third, all on the same bureau score. All that being said, under 10%, as in 9% or less, seems to be a scoring breakpoint.

With the two different util figures: are the balances on your EQ and TU reports identical? Do you have a line of credit or home equity line of credit? These sometimes get factored differently by the three bureaus.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't worry about it. I've seen them say in the past that 32% is "good."

I wonder if they compare your utilization to the last time you pulled a report? Maybe 10% is "bad" if the last time you pulled a report it was less than that? So they detect what appears to be a rising trend?

I think the algorithms on the auto-generated advice just aren't the greatest when there isn't an obvious problem with your current CR, and you'll occasionally see some oddities like that. I think they optimize for telling you something that you can do.

I recently had one of the "simulate best action" things tell me that I ought to pay down my $113 balance "over the next 24 months"...this was a single charge on a statement that had just posted...which I intend to PIF by the due date. I had to laugh and laugh, since I'm usually PIFing balances closer to $1k every month.

[Anonymous]

EQ always says pay down in 24 months when you have a 10.00 balance even.  They need help.  It boggles the mind that they have so much power over our lives with that kind crap going on.