How is balance reported by a lender?

[codesingh]

Hello All,

Happy New Year 2013 to all, I wish you all to have a better score this year.

My question is about "utilization". I want to have a rough idea about how does a lender report balance. Since the balance that we incur is so dynamic, do banks have some sort of rule on which balance to report to TU, EX and EQ?

I run all of my expenses thru one of the CC I have. Sometimes I am making a payment of $995.00 from a credit card with a limit of $1000 but then I pay it off right away, mostly within the next couple of days(or as soon as the lender allows me to pay). Is that a good practice to max out CC but then pay off right away in full? 

Please suggest if I should avoid doing that for the sake of util.

Thanks,

Singh

[pizzadude]

Lenders typically report your balance as it appears on your monthly statement.    So all that matters from a credit reporting perspective is what your balance is at the time each creditor cuts a new statement.

[jake619]

Also consider some creditors report mid-cycle.  Although it's not happened to me there are others here that shared instances where non-statement balances were reported.  If that happened you'd be in bad shape @ 99.5% util.