AMEX Listed as Revolving?

[Anonymous]

This is my first post here, so here goes....  First of all, I have found TONS of useful info on this site, and I want to thank you guys for that.  I searched and searched, but couldn't find much posted about this subject.  I have two Amex cards (green and platinum) with no limit listed on my reports.  The show $0 limit, but they typically have $10k or so combined shown as a balance.  These seem to be hurting my utilization since they both show up as revolving instead of "other".  The balances on these cars put me over 50% almost every month.  Will Amex change these accounts to "other" if I request it?  I think it would make a big difference in my scores.  Thanks in advance for your help.

[Anonymous]

fused (one of the mods) faught this fight recently. so bump to put out the spam signal.

[Anonymous]

I tried searching his posts, but there are a ton of them.  Do you happen to have a link?  I have unfortunately eaten Spam, but I'm certainly not spam. 

[Anonymous]

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Carrot1 wrote:

I tried searching his posts, but there are a ton of them.  Do you happen to have a link?  I have unfortunately eaten Spam, but I'm certainly not spam. 

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sorry no link, and i apologize if you thought i meant you were spam. fused has the genetic hawaian affinity for the canned meat spam. that's the kind of spam signal i was trying to make a funny of.

[Anonymous]

  Gotcha!  Well spam on then!  Hopefully he'll see this thread. 

[Junejer]

Hi Carrot, I have nothing to add to the convo other than to say that I like your avatar (I used to have that one) and that I wanted to bump this to the top of the board, so that you can get some help. GL

Bump

[RobertEG]

If you listen to the recent FICO webinars on this site, they make it clear that there are three different lines of credit that are each scored differently.  Those categories are Installment, Revolving, and Open. 

An "Open" line of credit, which includes most AMEX cards, is a line of credit with no fixed limits, and you pay on a timely basis.  They are usually not scored as revolving credit, because they have no fixed, revolving line of credit attached.  Some "Open" accounts may score based upon their highest prior balance as a reference, and thus report as "revolving,"  but they are not true revolving credit, and FICO apparrently scores them differently.

[fused]

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Carrot1 wrote:

This is my first post here, so here goes....  First of all, I have found TONS of useful info on this site, and I want to thank you guys for that.  I searched and searched, but couldn't find much posted about this subject.  I have two Amex cards (green and platinum) with no limit listed on my reports.  The show $0 limit, but they typically have $10k or so combined shown as a balance.  These seem to be hurting my utilization since they both show up as revolving instead of "other".  The balances on these cars put me over 50% almost every month.  Will Amex change these accounts to "other" if I request it?  I think it would make a big difference in my scores.  Thanks in advance for your help.

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- On EQ and TU, charge cards should report as "other open account."

- On EX it should reports as "revolving, terms 1 month".

Keep in mind that the TU FICO 98 score you pull at this site uses an older scoring model, and no matter how your Amex cards report, the balances will still factor in revolving util calculations. I know it's idiotic! There is good news though, most lenders who pull your TU FICO score are using the newer TU 04 model which does not factor charge cards in util calculations. Your TU score with this current scoring model should be higher.

At this point, I wouldn't do anything. Why you say? The vast majority of lenders are no longer using the old TU 98. Disputing with CRAs can open another whole can of worms. Try and pay your cards before your statements cut.

Message Edited by fused on 05-24-2008 06:51 PM

[RobertEG]

That is an absolutely excellent point, fused, and one that so many of us miss.  Each CRA decides what version of FICO, and there are many that FairIsaac sells, that it wishes to purchase and use to report FICO scores against its database

There aint no plain vanilla FICO ice cream cone.

How charge vs credit cards are scored by each CRA model from FairIsaac appears, from your comments, to be quite different. That is very telling and informative. 
Thanks for the insight.

[Anonymous]

Fused,

If a majority of lenders are pulling the 04 formula, isn't it true that the website will begin showing that TU FICO score instead of the ones generated via the old 08 formula pretty soon?