Paid Down Credit Cards But No Bump

[Anonymous]

I subscribed to MyFICO on December 10th. At that time I had large balances on my two credit cards. I have a secured USAA Visa with a $550 credit limit and a Premium USAA Visa with a $1500 credit limit. When I subscribed to MyFICO, I had a $400 balance on my secured card and a $900 on my premium card. On December 17th, I paid down both credit cards to a $0 balance, and I was expecting to see a bump in my FICO score, but my score has not changed at all. I didn't even get an alert that the cards had been paid down.

I admit that I do not understand how credit scores are calculated or exactly what affects them. However, I am surprised that paying my two credit cards down $1300 had no effect at all. Is this normal? Thank you.

[msbia]

When your statement cuts with the newly paid down balances, you should see the bump in scores. Figure out when your statement date is and look for it then. USAA does not do mid-cycle reporting as far as I know. 

[longtimelurker]

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@msbia wrote:

When your statement cuts with the newly paid down balances, you should see the bump in scores. Figure out when your statement date is and look for it then. USAA does not do mid-cycle reporting as far as I know. 

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Yes, the CRAs don't have "live" access to your accounts, and rely on what issuers report to them.   Some, such as Chase, might report when a balance is paid down (to zero), others only report monthly.  So your score doesn't change until the information gets reported

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for your reply. I really appreciate your helpful information.

[yoyo]

You got to get your credit line higher....a $5000 limit ....you will see a difference quicker paying off accts...I've started with $800 credit line with cap one..maxed then paid off..when reported no change...when credit lines started to grow ..i saw the difference

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I subscribed to MyFICO on December 10th. At that time I had large balances on my two credit cards. I have a secured USAA Visa with a $550 credit limit and a Premium USAA Visa with a $1500 credit limit. When I subscribed to MyFICO, I had a $400 balance on my secured card and a $900 on my premium card. On December 17th, I paid down both credit cards to a $0 balance, and I was expecting to see a bump in my FICO score, but my score has not changed at all. I didn't even get an alert that the cards had been paid down.

I admit that I do not understand how credit scores are calculated or exactly what affects them. However, I am surprised that paying my two credit cards down $1300 had no effect at all. Is this normal? Thank you.

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Always best to have one open CC account report a none zero balance. If all open accounts report NO balance, your score may drop (some people report a score drop of up to 30 points) - No cards reporting a balance indicates no use of credit.

General guidelines for making Fico happy to increase your score:

1) Report a non zero balance on at least one credit card.

2) On any card that does report a balance, keep reported balance less than 30% of credit limit.

3) Maintain aggregate utilization (all cards combined) less than 9%. Aggregate utilization has more influence on score than utilization on a per card basis - unless you "max out a card". Max out is somewhere around 85% or above.

[Anonymous]

Question Thomas Thumbs can I have the card that's reporting the balance be a card I'm a authorized user on or does it have to be one of my own cards. I currently have four credit cards one of them is a card I'm authorized user on. And when I had three of them reported zero and the authorize user card  report a balance I lost 13 points.. Before that I had one of my own cards report a  2 dollar balance. Was paying that off and having my only card reporting a balance as an authorized user card the reason for my 13 point drop or do you think that's unrelated? Please help

[Thomas_Thumb]

There are too many potential factors in play that could affect score outside # cards reporting. So, I'd rather not speculate. I general terms, I would always recommend reporting a balance on one of YOUR cards regardless of reporting status on the AU card.

I am AU on a card my wife uses exclusively. The card is used for household and other joint expenses. It always reports a balance. I have 5 personal cards and always report a balance on at least one of them every month. It is advisable to build/maintain one's own credit and an AU card does not really do that.

[Anonymous]

Ok thanks a lot! And just as a heads up the only change on my credit report at that point was the two dollar balance being paid off making the AU account becoming the only one reporting. That's why I thought that was the reason for the 13 point drop. I looked line by line thru the previous credit report and that one and literally nothing else had changed.