General Credit Topics

[Brammy]

I have one card that was reporting maxed out due to not reporting a credit limit.  My overall utilization was still standig at 34%.  This card just updated today to show a 0 balance. Resulted in a 15 point bump in score.  In a system where a few points can, make a difference between whether or not you can afford a house, this was HUGE.  Lesson learned, never max out a card, or if you do, pay it off before the statement date.

Message Edited by Brammy on 04-05-2007 02:26 PM

[yoreljm]

Do you use score monitoring program on this site? I signed up for the free trial, but it has never notified me of a credit score change...and I'm pretty sure my score must have changed.

[jaybee]

Congratulations Brammy

I would have to also say that I paid two of my credit cards down and they are both under 20% now and a week later I received a nice little notification saying that my score went up 17 points YAAAYY!!!!

[antredd67]

     I would have to say that we are well on our way to getting in the 700 club.  I just realized that when we apply for credit unless it's a mortgage, credit companies only pull one credit report from either Experian, Transunion, or Equifax.  When Wamu pulled my credit report, they pulled it from my Experian which is my highest Fico score right now. So it's sorta good to know which report the credit card will pull from as to minimize the number of inquiries..

[Brammy]

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antredd67 wrote:

     I would have to say that we are well on our way to getting in the 700 club.  I just realized that when we apply for credit unless it's a mortgage, credit companies only pull one credit report from either Experian, Transunion, or Equifax.  When Wamu pulled my credit report, they pulled it from my Experian which is my highest Fico score right now. So it's sorta good to know which report the credit card will pull from as to minimize the number of inquiries..

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Thanks beware Crapital one always pulls one of EACH

[jaybee]

Antredd

That is interesting, WAMU pulled my TU which is my highest as well (686).

[Brammy]

Pulled TU on me as well.  May have something to do with which area you're applying from.  I know they use either TU or Exp nothing from EQ

[LadyFICO]

First off congrats I am new to the forum as far as writing goes. Brammy according to calculations you went from max on one card and paid it and got 15 another said he paid 2 cards down to under 20  and got 17 points I'm not sure where the person was maxed to begin with or whether FICO allows huge jumps per cc. If it does I just paid 10 cards down below 25% all at their max. I am optimistic about wishing to gain 15 points per card which would immediately put me at my goal but based on what others have said sometimes paying all to soon doen't necessarily give you that big boost. Any suggestions?

[Brammy]

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LadyFICO wrote:

First off congrats I am new to the forum as far as writing goes. Brammy according to calculations you went from max on one card and paid it and got 15 another said he paid 2 cards down to under 20  and got 17 points I'm not sure where the person was maxed to begin with or whether FICO allows huge jumps per cc. If it does I just paid 10 cards down below 25% all at their max. I am optimistic about wishing to gain 15 points per card which would immediately put me at my goal but based on what others have said sometimes paying all to soon doen't necessarily give you that big boost. Any suggestions?

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Maxing out even one card can cause a huge decrease in your FICO score it looks as ifyou're living beyond your means (using cards to live on). My increase came in one month.  he card wasn't even actually maxed out it was just reporting high balance and no credit limit.  Don't worry you will get a boost maybe not 15 points a card but maybe so. 

Before I learned how the program worked, I thought that as long as I kept my card from going overlimit and paid on time, my scores would increase, its only from places like this and a little research that I learned the TRUE rules of the game.

I'll put it like this, in the beginning I had one subprime card that was consistently over 50% though I paid on time and never minimum.  I only got offers on other subprimes cards. When that card ratejacked me due top a mistake on my CR I got mad and paid it off with the intention of closing it. Within a month of bringing the utilization down on that card under 10% I started to get offers from near prime lenders.  All the time I thought I was getting subprime offers simply due to my BK.

I started taking them up and closed the subprime card and suddenly got limits higher than I ever thought possible.  The last online approval was so far out of my expectations that I shouted an expletive when I logged into the account after approval and saw my limit. I even called the card company and asked if they were sure about the limit even though I could see it right there on my computer screen

For me, reducing utilization not only took me out of subprime territory but put me in the position to get some nice prime offers.

Message Edited by Brammy on 04-13-2007 08:11 AM

Message Edited by Brammy on 04-13-2007 08:12 AM

[LadyFICO]

I'm looking forward to being able to post the same results soon. BTW it wasn't so much living beyond means most of the subprime cards already come to you with a high util due to all the setup fees maintenance fees, etc I just opened them for the purpose of boosting my score at the time not thinking about util and that I could only afford to pay the minimum and now I realize that paying more each month and keeping util low is part of the rules of the FICO game. I hope to one day become a  master of this FICO game. Do you know any other things I can do to boost the score other than sit and wait at this point? Have you ever tried to goodwill anything?

LadyF