2 things that tick me off

[Anonymous]

If I PIF before balance is reported, won't I be reporting a $0 balance, which will cause my utilization to not count within a few months (the account will look dead).

In which case it would be best to PIF then spend 1-2% of credit limit. Especially if the company does not report a credit limit, and my utilization is based on my highest balance.

I am just thinking out loud trying to understand this

[smallfry]

I think I am beginning to realize all this credit score mumbo jumbo only matters if you are going to buy a house in the near future. If you have clean credit no debt how bad can they jam you. With the state of the car business you can write your own deal if you can steam a mirror and don't have a recent BK or run CC's up all the time.

[Anonymous]

With credit cards, you want to keep utilization low.  Always.  Utilization should NEVER be higher than 20% or so, unless you're backed right up against the wall and it's charge or starve/freeze.

The ONLY exception is the charge-up-to-near-the-max-so-a-CL-is-reported workaround for CapOne and other cards that report the maximum ever charged as the credit limit.  Even then, as soon as that high balance is booked, PIF or down to 10% or so.

[Anonymous]

True but as the poster had stated he requires a high score for business reasons. I think keeping credit clean like you said holds true, but what if you encounter an emergency a score of let's say 600 vs 720 may be a difference of thousands for a signature/personal loan not to mention the rate they would be charging for the loan.

It really is a matter of opinion. Since I have a decent salary I wish it would be a factor in some way. But then you would have people trying to get high paying jobs to boost their scores. Again, how would this be monitored? W2 or your tax return. People aren't always honest come tax time.

Do we really want cb having that info available? How many unsolicited offers would we get? What about the fact that info is reported wrong everyday on cr? How would we dispute it? Not sure if everyone would if the error is in their favor boosting the score.

Just some more thoughts!

[Tuscani]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

It all depends on what day the creditor reports to the CRAs, and what your balance is that day. It is not necessarily the same date as the statement date. Call and ask your creditors when they report. Or if you have a report/score monitoring product, you can figure it out.

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Tuscani, that's not right, your score is not necessarily based on your balance when your statement is cut. In some cases, that might be true, but not for all Credit cards. I have a HOUSEHOLD BANK card. I'm trying since many month to figure out how they get the numbers they report, first of all the amount reported is always 4-6 weeks old when they day they report it, and it's never the same balance as shown on the statement. I called them to find out on what date they report, but they couldn't tell me. They said it could be any day of the month, whenever they're ready to transfer the numbers to the bureaus. Most other cards report the statement balance shortly after the new statements come out, and if I pay the balance off a day before, then they don't show on my credit report.

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Interesting.. I have HSBC and the amount reported is ALWAYS my balance on my most recent statement.