Greetings. I'm seeing something strange with the utilization percentage that's showing up on my ScoreWatch report - it's too low! I always thought that a closed account counts as a zero credit limit for utilization purposes, but Equifax seems to be adding in the limit from my old (closed) Discover card that is paying off soon. This is causing Equifax to show 38%, while I was calculating 159%. Everything will be PIF by January anyway, but there are some desperately need home repairs that I'd like to get started on before then 
, so I'm trying to figure out if it's worth taking a shot at a better CC. I have three open CC with 3600 total CL, and then the old Discover that has more balance than the other three combined.
Here's what the next two months look the way that Equifax seems to be calculating things:
Now.................37.68%
17-Nov.............26.22%
23-Nov.............12.19%
12-Dec.............3.85%
23-Dec.............2.78%
But if I do it the "right" way (treat the closed account as zero CL), it looks like this:
Now..........159.16%
17-Nov......104.89%
23-Nov.......48.75%
12-Dec......15.42%
23-Dec.......2.78%
So the question is who's right?
My Equifax FICO is currently 704, so I'd probaly be able to get something decent, but I want to make sure that Equifax isn't doing something screwy that would artifically inflate my score in comparison to Experian.
From what I understand, if you close an account, but keep a balance on it, the balance and credit limit will factor into your utilization until the balance reaches 0. Once you have no remaining balance on that card, the credit limit will be removed from your utilization.
So in short, it appears to be helping your score big time with this account carrying a balance. It seems your limits on your open cards must be low to have such a high utilization rate; was there a reason you closed the discover (opt out I assume?)
Starting Score: 627 EQ, 621 TU - 11/15/08