Does installment account by utility company help?

[Anonymous]

I have my gas company reporting to TU. It shows up as installment account and has always $0 balance and high limit (I use auto pay). I was wondering if such an account counts towards anything. It seems as it does not influence my length of credit history. Maybe it is a account that can only hurt, if something goes wrong, without any positive effect.

Message Edited by Physicist on 09-13-2008 11:06 AM

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have my gas company reporting to TU. It shows up as installment account and has always $0 balance and high limit (I use auto pay). I was wondering if such an account counts towards anything. It seems as it does not influence my length of credit history. Maybe it is a account that can only hurt, if something goes wrong, without any positive effect.

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If it's reporting as installment, rather than revolving, it probably doesn't have much effect, other than its existence as an open TL.

[Anonymous]

If that is your only installment loan showing as open then it is a sizeable boost, and depending on the length of time open it may be a boost to your average age of accounts.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If that is your only installment loan showing as open then it is a sizeable boost, and depending on the length of time open it may be a boost to your average age of accounts.

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That is what I also thought. But fact is hat my average age is the same on EQ, EX, and TU, although only TU sees this "installment" account.

[RobertEG]

If it does not hurt your avg age of accounts, it is clearly positive.  It adds an installment loan to your credit mix, at 0% util.

It is rare that a util co. makes regualr reports to a CRA.  From this, I would conclude that they take a very agressive credit policy, and I would NEVER have a late payment with them!

[MattH]

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@RobertEG wrote:

If it does not hurt your avg age of accounts, it is clearly positive. It adds an installment loan to your credit mix, at 0% util.

It is rare that a util co. makes regualr reports to a CRA. From this, I would conclude that they take a very agressive credit policy, and I would NEVER have a late payment with them!

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United Illuminating, the electric utility for my part of Connecticut, is the only one of my utilities that appears on my credit history. Sprint, Comcast, AT&T, and Southern Connecticut Gas have never appeared on my history.

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

From this, I would conclude that they take a very agressive credit policy, and I would NEVER have a late payment with them!

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Right, that is why I use the automatic payment plan ;-)

[scramblingin2007]

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@MattH wrote:

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@RobertEG wrote:

If it does not hurt your avg age of accounts, it is clearly positive. It adds an installment loan to your credit mix, at 0% util.

It is rare that a util co. makes regualr reports to a CRA. From this, I would conclude that they take a very agressive credit policy, and I would NEVER have a late payment with them!

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United Illuminating, the electric utility for my part of Connecticut, is the only one of my utilities that appears on my credit history. Sprint, Comcast, AT&T, and Southern Connecticut Gas have never appeared on my history.

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Yes, be very careful with United Illuminating.....that's all I will say..

[Anonymous]

Quite frankly, I have to agree with the above post(s) although I have always been a faithful and timely payee on all my utilities including phone and Cable just recently I had to turn down HDTV Sattelite Service because it would cause me to incur a hard inqury on my CRA report for a service request with no benefit.  In other words I would lose FICO points for an inquiry (HARD) but gain nothing for another tradeline.  And it would stay with me for 2 years!  No thank you!   

[Anonymous]

https://prbc.com/secure/login.php  I hope this link works.  It's some kind of Scam after market 3rd Party Thing You have to send Documentation to and they record Payment info. on a data Base for a fee but it doesn't count towards your FICO profile.  IMHO it's virtually worthless.  But Check it out if you Want!

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