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High Balance vs. Reported Balances

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KevinBlock55
Established Member

High Balance vs. Reported Balances

Question for you folks, we all know not to let our credit cards report showing 95% utilization so most of us pay down the cards the day before the statement closes. My question is, even tho you pay down that balance, it still reports the highest amount you've charged that card to. Lets say you have a credit line of $1k. You charge it up with gas and bills to the tune of a $900 balance. Now the day before your statement generates, you pay the balance down to say $100. While your balance is reported at 10% of your credit limit, can't they see the high balance as well? I have been wondering if this affects people. Lots of people claim to keep their balances low and seem to get no CLIs or improvements in their score. Do the credit agencies factor in the High Credit/Balance?? Hopefully this makes sense because it does in my head lol
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scarrollprint
Frequent Contributor

Re: High Balance vs. Reported Balances

not sure I totally understand the question, but I'll try to answer.

 

If you use up 100% of your credit limit and then make a payment for 90% of what the new balance is (lets say its the day it posts) you'll be back down to 10%.

 

If this all happens before the statment cuts and info is sent to the credit reporting agencies then all will show up on your credit report your utilization of 10%. It won't show that you used 100% of your credit limit for like 3 days.

 

The high balance on your credit reports just shows what the highest balance you ever had reported on your credit reports.

 

I've messed around with it for a couple months I would make sure no matter what I had exactly 9% balance reporting. for 2 months once I got the card up to 9% I SD it for the rest of the month and paid it off as soon as the statement cut. Then for 2 months I used up 100% of my measly 300 CL (i'm paying for a cruise so I made a 300 payment) paid off all but 9% as soon as it cut and then paid off the balance the day after the statement cut. Both times my "highest balance" never once went up to $300. I've since just started using as much or as little of that 300 as I wanted and just make sure I pay off the balance before the statment cuts.

 



Current: Eq- 624 Ex - 631 (lender pulled) TU - 661 (lender pulled)
Goal 700+ across all three
Message 2 of 5
KevinBlock55
Established Member

Re: High Balance vs. Reported Balances

Well I am much like you in the fact that I pay my balances down every month but my report still shows the highest I've charged the card. While it doesn't show as a statement closing for that amount, it does list my High Balance which is approx. 80% of my credit line. I never let it close with that balance but it still shows it. I was just wondering if they look at that. There they can see that, at one point or another, you charged the hell outta that card..
Message 3 of 5
scarrollprint
Frequent Contributor

Re: High Balance vs. Reported Balances

I think the only issue you'll ever see is a manual review, but even then they look at whats the reported balance now vs the credit limit. Even more so if you've had the card for more than 6 months.

 

If you've had the card 3 years and go to get a mortgage they will manually look at your credit reports, but really all they will care about is that your payments are all on time, and what your balance is, at the point of review for DTI ratio. They won't care that 3 years ago you maxed out your credit card. And unless you only have cap 1 you should see a credit limit increase after 3 years anyways so really it wouldn't even bee 100% at that point...

 

 



Current: Eq- 624 Ex - 631 (lender pulled) TU - 661 (lender pulled)
Goal 700+ across all three
Message 4 of 5
Shogun
Moderator Emeritus

Re: High Balance vs. Reported Balances

Your FICO score doesn't care what your high limit is.  It just takes a look at the current util at the particular time your score is pulled. 

Starting Score: 504
July 2013 score:
EQ FICO 819, TU08 778, EX "806 lender pull 07/26/2013
Goal Score: All Scores 760+, Newest goal 800+
Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge

Current scores after adding $81K in CLs and 2 new cars since July 2013
EQ:809 TU 777 EX 790 Now it's just garden time!

June 2017 update: All scores over 820, just pure gardening now.
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