Closing only CC, with balance = 100% util?

[Anonymous]

I never really thought about this before, but say an individual possesses just 1 credit card and it has a balance on it.  The credit limit in this illustration is irrelevant.  Say that individual closes their card (for whatever reason) or the creditor closes the card on them out of the blue.  How would this data then be perceived under FICO scoring?  Would the account by default go to 100% utilization?  Would the account not be included at all in utilization since it was closed?  Is it included until the balance is paid off? 

A couple of years ago my CU closed my card on me without warning, and at the time I had a balance of a few thousand dollars on a $10k limit.  Back then I didn't monitor my scores much if at all, so I'm not sure how this adversely impacted my scores.  I'm wondering if I just lost points for credit mix since I had no revolvers or if I lost major points with my one revolver (aggregate utilization 100%) being maxed out. 

[Anonymous]

Revelate knows the answer in detail.  He helped out a person a few weeks ago about this.  An account had been closed but was still reporting a small balance -- and the person writing in couldn't figure out why his score had taken a dive.  (He hadn't seen the small balance either at first.)

In this case he had other open cards, so his total utilization was not affected (except maybe by a tenth of a %).  But FICO was treating that particular card as if it were over 100% (individual util) and he was therefore getting a stiff penalty.  Once we identified the problem, the guy worked with the creditor to get it to report $0 (possibly by paying the $6 or whatever the balance was).  Score went back up.

[Anonymous]

Gotcha, so an account closed with a balance is still included in FICO scoring then.  I'd imagine my scores took a huge nose dive a few years ago when my only card closed as my aggregate utilization was then at 100% as opposed to the example you just gave where the individual had several others cards, so only one trade line was maxed out.  Interesting.