Close vs paid on CR

[marty56]

I got a Score Watch alert saying the an account has changed and I got a 4 point drop.  My util went from 9% to 10% with no change in balance.

The message said the account is closed or paid in full.  It has been at 0 balance for over a year.  The account was in DMP.

The account condition shows as being paid on my TC report and I cant tell here wether it closed or not.

I ven called MyFICO customer service and they thought it was closed but it they didnt sound so sure.

Anyone have any thoughts on this.

[haulingthescoreup]

Since both TrueCredit and myFICO are report resellers, a status can sometimes get reported in slightly different terms from the original. (There are other peculiar quirks with them as well.) You might see paid, closed, paid/closed, closed by consumer, etc.

So in other words, the account before was open with a $0 balance, and now it's closed (under whatever terms)? So the credit limit that was on it is no longer available in calculating your total util, and that made your util go up a percentage point.

So it looks like the 4 point score drop was due to moving from the under 10% (1-9%) util tier to the under 20% or under 30% (10% - whichever %) tier. (I got feedback from TU once that implied there was a tier change at 20%, so I don't know if this next breakpoint is 20% or 30%.)

I don't think that there would be any score change simply for the account now reporting as closed. If you want to be absolutely sure of how the status shows on the real report, you'll probably have to get the real thing from EQ.

We may finally have an official example of how your util changes and can affect your scores when you close an unused card! Whew, more coffee...

[marty56]

Its wrose then that, My EX score droped 16 points for apperently the same reason.  My EX report also shows a negative as high utilization (It doesnt say what it s of course) when last month it didnt say that.  My reported oustanding balance is still 3470.  It is really 2880.

It seems EX may be more sensttive to util then EQ or TU.

I will do the math to try to see what my total available credit is so I can calculate what happend.

Everything else on my CR seems to be normal.  No new lates, INQs, accounts, util or CL drop.

[haulingthescoreup]

What was the CL on the closed card?

You're experiencing the flip side of having scores in the upper 700's --they vary so much more widely than they do with the rest of us schmucks. Util seems to be especially sensitive, as the assumption is that high scorers don't carry very much of a balance.

[marty56]

The CL was 6,000.  I checked the EX report and the only difference was that the status on the Wells Fargo account in question went from:

         This is an account in good standing

 to:

         Account paid satisfactorily.

Can I assume that  Account paid satisfactorily doesnt count in util?

[granny031350]

I also received an alert for a cc account I paid off.  I had closed the account last year but just finished paying off the balance (I know, pre myfico)  2 days ago, scorewatch said I had a 3 point bump up because an account balance had changed (must have lowered my utilization by paying it off) and then on True Credit, the alert told me a "new account" posted to your Equifax.  I didn't have a new account and the only change on the report is that it now states "paid and closed".

I am waiting for my First Premier to post and report as paid and closed also .  Hopefully will give me a few more points in less utilization on accounts closed previously. 

[marty56]

Interesting enough that TU shows the account was closed and there was no change in util or score.

[marty56]

I had to go to the Experian site to get their credit report which gave a better indication of what accounts were opened and closed then here (sorry Barry).

It seems that some CCCs (BoifA,Wells Fargo) didnt close my account when I entered DMP so they were still helping my scores.  People here in DMP or are thinking about it take note.

I still have a 7500 CL BofA card at 0 balance which is open.   That means I need to pay down 2400 to get my real util to %5.  This will be done by the end of the month.

I knida new I was living on borrowed time with those open accounts and it is interesting that the Wells Fargo account has been paid in full for over a year and suddenly they decide to close it.

Never close an open account (even at 0 balance).  The 15  and 4 point drop on my EX, EQ score was enough to knock me out of the High FICO achiever and go from Very Good to Good. 

[smallfry]

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@marty56 wrote:

I had to go to the Experian site to get their credit report which gave a better indication of what accounts were opened and closed then here (sorry Barry).

It seems that some CCCs (BoifA,Wells Fargo) didnt close my account when I entered DMP so they were still helping my scores. People here in DMP or are thinking about it take note.

I still have a 7500 CL BofA card at 0 balance which is open. That means I need to pay down 2400 to get my real util to %5. This will be done by the end of the month.

I knida new I was living on borrowed time with those open accounts and it is interesting that the Wells Fargo account has been paid in full for over a year and suddenly they decide to close it.

Never close an open account (even at 0 balance). The 15 and 4 point drop on my EX, EQ score was enough to knock me out of the High FICO achiever and go from Very Good to Good.

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Closing accounts may or may not hurt you. As with everything credit YMMV. I closed 6 accounts last year and it had no effect on my scores at all. Most were very new accounts. Matter of fact one was a five year old Capone and still no score drop.