Credit Card Util and scoring.

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

it has been a while since I've been on this site, I have been away honeymooning with my lovely wife  While honeymooning I let my credit card debt slip a whole lot.  I went from a total  of17% util to 107% util on my credit card balances.  It did not really bother me much because I knew before I made a try for credit that I would pay it back down.  Now that my score has dropped 91 points from a 643 to a 552, I was wondering, if I paid my credit cards down to 1% util is it possible to get in that range when they report next month.  The simulation said that my best course of action would be to pay down 90-100% of my balances and I should be around 120-160 point gain.

So I guess my next question is, does fico take in to account how long it took you to pay down the balances or does it matter if you have 107% util one month then 1% the next month when reported?  Any help would be gladly welcomed.

note:  There have been no other changes to my report since the last time I checked which was april of 09, only the the util %going from 17 to 107.

Thanks again

[RobertEG]

% util has no historical memory in FICO scoring.  FICO scores based only on current utilization.

The bigger problem you may face is with the CCC.  When you go over 100% of your approved CL, that violates your CC agreement, and will probably authirize the CCC to increase your interest rate to the default level.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Robert EG,

I have paid the balances on all 4 of the credit cards and sock drawered all but one, in hopes of keeping my util% around 3%-5%.  So, how accurate is the simulation, how likely is it, will I see 100+ point gain on my eq report?

107% to 1% util

[llecs]

If I was a betting man I'd guess 100-110 points on both EQ and TU....maybe more on TU vs. EQ (110 + 90). FICO HATES any TL over the credit limit. I bet just by bringing card(s) below 100% would net at least 10-20. As a general rule of thumb (certainly not factual), for every 10% you lower, you gain 10 pts with most gains appearant when bringing balances below 30% or so. So, from 91% down to 0% you'd see 90-100 points off util alone. Add the loss due to being OTL, you'd have a decent gain. As mentioned, get all to report $0 with the remaining reporting a balance of less than 9% (3-5% is great). This is all assuming your mix is good and it looks like it.

Keep us posted and congrats!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply,

That was exactly what I needed to hear.  I did a lot of big spending during my honeymoon and I paid for it dearly.  Now that I am ready to get a new car for my wife, I wanted my eq fico score to atleast look presentable when I went to the cu to apply for an auto loan, as they check only eq.  Thanks again llecs, your the greatest, it is always nice to come on here and get advice from you and the other  mods(htsu), super contributers and 1st time fico experts....