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I just got a $ 15K USAA card. I had a Capital One with a balance of $ 4K on a $ 5K CL.
I had a Wells Fargo LOC - balance of $ 3,700 on CL of $ 5k.
I did balance transfers to zero out both the Cap one and the Wells. So now my USAA card balance is around $ 8k on a CL of $ 15k.
Is it better to show two of the lines with a zero balance or should I spread some on the Cap One or Wells and get the USAA card under 50%?
EQ- 750
TU- 710 - does not reflect USAA CL, so utilization went from 8% to 67%. Lost 63 points on score.
EX- 734 lender pull in Dec., probably lower now because of higher utilization
@Anonymous wrote:I just got a $ 15K USAA card. I had a Capital One with a balance of $ 4K on a $ 5K CL.
I had a Wells Fargo LOC - balance of $ 3,700 on CL of $ 5k.
I did balance transfers to zero out both the Cap one and the Wells. So now my USAA card balance is around $ 8k on a CL of $ 15k.
Is it better to show two of the lines with a zero balance or should I spread some on the Cap One or Wells and get the USAA card under 50%?
EQ- 750
TU- 710 - does not reflect USAA CL, so utilization went from 8% to 67%. Lost 63 points on score.
EX- 734 lender pull in Dec., probably lower now because of higher utilization
What would I do? I'd leave the Cap 1 and WF at zero and work on getting that balance on the USAA back down. It is at 53% (8000/15000) and that's kinda high but certainly not a killer util and it will help having only one of your three cards showing a balance each month.
Just my 2 cents.
From a BK years ago to:
7/09 TU-742 EQ- 779
8/09 TU-765 EQ- 783
9/09 EX pulled by lender 802
You can do the same thing with hard work.
I'm also curious about this. Two of the things negatively affecting my credit are too many accounts with balances and too high debt to credit ratio. Since I have a couple of cards that are around 75%, and a couple that are closer to 50% and fairly small overall, I think it will be better to pay off the two small ones completely, thus decreasing my overall debt to below 50% of my total credit AND decreasing the amount of cards with a balance by 50% (two birds with one stone). According to myFICO.com, it's the OVERALL credit to debt ratio that's important, not the individual credit to debt ratios of each card (unless a card is maxed or very close to maxed), but I've seen other places say otherwise (though most don't specify at all).
Can we get a response from an myFICO rep?
@Anonymous wrote:I'm also curious about this. Two of the things negatively affecting my credit are too many accounts with balances and too high debt to credit ratio. Since I have a couple of cards that are around 75%, and a couple that are closer to 50% and fairly small overall, I think it will be better to pay off the two small ones completely, thus decreasing my overall debt to below 50% of my total credit AND decreasing the amount of cards with a balance by 50% (two birds with one stone). According to myFICO.com, it's the OVERALL credit to debt ratio that's important, not the individual credit to debt ratios of each card (unless a card is maxed or very close to maxed), but I've seen other places say otherwise (though most don't specify at all).
Can we get a response from an myFICO rep?
Can you link to where it says that? I'm not saying you are wrong just curious where you read it.
OP - My understanding is that a balance of over 50% on a single card can be FICO hurtful. Have you considered pulling your current EQ report (after your accounts report) and checking your scores at that point? If you're not happy with the results, consider moving part of your balance over. If you do pull your scores, I hope you'll share so we can all understand this part of FICO scoring better.
And of course, that's the good news with utilization - it's easy to make changes. Any possibility you can actually pay down?
Some experts report that it's best to keep each reported balance below $2500 no matter what your CL is - I, of course, have no experience with that because I'm a rebuilder and my CL's are all below $2500 ! Perhaps some of our experienced guys can report what their experiences are on that count.
Congrats on your USAA card!