Used over $100,000 in credit, here is what happened to my score

[gen-specific]

SKIP TO UPDATE 2018: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Used-over-100-000-in-credit-here-is-what-...

Original:

Inspired by the guy that talked about how mortgage troubles affected his score (I think he lost his house), I felt inspired to talk about the largely inconsequential wild fluctuations in my credit score

In January I went from about 0% utilization to about 65% utilization. The average age of my accounts are 2 years and 5 months. It's just an average.

This hasn't all reported yet, credit karma currently reports 55% utilization.

My Vantage Scores went from 770 down to 554 in 30 days. This is a 216 point drop. Vantage Score you laugh, well I also have opened some accounts as part of this process and have therefore received the scores the lender actually pulled during my credit evaluations, which I have to assume are FICO, these so far have been 663 or so. 

It is also entirely probable that the lenders have scores that were last updated a few months ago, so I get to assume the worst.

The actual cash I pulled from the cards is sitting tight as it is all 0% interest balance transfers. I'll let you all know if Macy's (my lowest limit card) gets spooked and gives me another credit limit decrease, hysterical.

I haven't updated my signature in a while, those limits are not accurate any longer.

The point is to let you guys know which one of these creditors can actually make good on the credit they've extended to you, and which ones will likely pull the lifeline when you actually need it  the theory is that a lot of you guys are wasting your time here trying to get above-average credit, or maybe even to the place where I am with limits, so we'll see if it's worth it!

[NRB525]

Ok, Playa

$100k in open balanced owed? I went through that a few years ago. Will be interested to see what your result is. Mine was pre-financial crisis, and the subsequent action was all my high limit cards were CLD balance chased, some closed. Chase, Citi, BofA, not CapOne. No experience here of Wells Fargo, US Bank or AMEX in that situation.

Can you put some details on that explanation? Which cards have cash advances against them? If you have cash in the bank, they aren't balance transfers, they are cash advances, should have a higher APR once any 0% concludes.

[gen-specific]

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@NRB525 wrote:

Ok, Playa

$100k in open balanced owed? I went through that a few years ago. Will be interested to see what your result is. Mine was pre-financial crisis, and the subsequent action was all my high limit cards were CLD balance chased, some closed. Chase, Citi, BofA, not CapOne. No experience here of Wells Fargo, US Bank or AMEX in that situation.

Can you put some details on that explanation? Which cards have cash advances against them? If you have cash in the bank, they aren't balance transfers, they are cash advances, should have a higher APR once any 0% concludes.

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yep, a lot of the institutions are playing fast and loose with the terms balance transfer and cash advance. But what you said about the distinction is not an absolute. Some pencil pushers in customer support will tell you there are limitations or that they can/can't/won't, transfer to certain kinds of accounts. Other times, you just go online, type in an account number and institution, and the credit card company moves the funds wherever you specified. Sometimes I made that account a checking account, or to a line of credit.

So again, I'm at 65% utilization, when you leveraged up what percent were you at? I am curious if that makes a difference in the Senior Financial Analyst freakout sessions, during the coming months

[NRB525]

$116,900 open on $168,100 CL, 70% utilization across 10 CC.

[gen-specific]

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@NRB525 wrote:

$116,900 open on $168,100 CL, 70% utilization across 10 CC.

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Alright.

I just got an Experian score from a denied CLI, although it was a soft pull.  It is now 606

Note: I don't know if this is FICO 04, FICO 08, or other. This is just an illustrative example of what you might expect, and what you might expect other lenders to base your credit worthiness on. Pseudorandom numbers from random scoring models.

It is an interesting scoring mechanism, it actually makes it hard for you to use your credit haphazardly, it is like a lever, no credit use the lever is siting up high and when you start weighing down the lever with credit use then your score is low. Makes getting to 100% hard, which is good - for the banks, and the consumer most of the time

[GregB]

When I had to make some huge charges to finish off a divorce in 2010, my Revolving Credit peaked at $138K, which was around 55% Util. A few creditors then lowered my limits so even when I had the amount down to $110K a few months later, my utilization actually climbed to 65%.

My EQ FICO dropped to 696 but shortly settled back to 701 and sat there for a loooong time.

AMOUNT owed never reported as reason #1 for items hurting score.

"You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit" AKA Utilization was always #1 or #2.

"You have too many credit cards carrying balances" AKA Number of accounts with balances was the other reason that stayed at #1 or #2.

Getting the amount down to $72K didn't move the score from 701. Getting the number of accounts with balances down from 11 to 10 didn't move it either. Getting the number of accounts with balances down to 9 moved it to 704.

I took advantage of another 0% balance transfer, which pushed the number of accounts with balances to 10. It took getting the amount down to $65 and the Util down to 40% to get to 708.

[gen-specific]

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@GregB wrote:

When I had to make some huge charges to finish off a divorce in 2010, my Revolving Credit peaked at $138K, which was around 55% Util. A few creditors then lowered my limits so even when I had the amount down to $110K a few months later, my utilization actually climbed to 65%.

My EQ FICO dropped to 696 but shortly settled back to 701 and sat there for a loooong time.

AMOUNT owed never reported as reason #1 for items hurting score.

"You've made heavy use of your available revolving credit" AKA Utilization was always #1 or #2.

"You have too many credit cards carrying balances" AKA Number of accounts with balances was the other reason that stayed at #1 or #2.

Getting the amount down to $72K didn't move the score from 701. Getting the number of accounts with balances down from 11 to 10 didn't move it either. Getting the number of accounts with balances down to 9 moved it to 704.

I took advantage of another 0% balance transfer, which pushed the number of accounts with balances to 10. It took getting the amount down to $65 and the Util down to 40% to get to 708.

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What did you start with before those charges?

Both utilization, and score. It is worth noting that the end of your story retained a utilization of 40% and 10 accounts with balances. Getting this to a third of both of those stats would be more illuminative for the scoring model.

[GregB]

Typically about 750 or so. Oldest report that I've saved in the same EQ FICO 04 shows 734 but that has a 69 month old 30-day late thanks to the ex-wife. Should have been old enough at that point to have little effect but still think it had SOME. Also has 2 new accounts in past year and a $25K intallment loan. EX FICO 04 at same time was 758 and TU FICO 98 was 755.

Current EQ FICO is 756 but that is FICO 8 model now. It has $76K revolving and 41% Utilization. No new accounts, not even an inquiry. Still showing reason for hurting the score as #1 Utilization, #2 Amount. There is no #3 but that could be the new model.

I've learned that any one big negative takes you down a path in the algorithm that gives you a maximum score possible. You need to remove the big negatives or you are stuck. You don't get far until the listed reasons affecting your score become minor issues. Now if we can just figure out what is major and what is minor...... 

[gen-specific]

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@GregB wrote:

Typically about 750 or so. Oldest report that I've saved in the same EQ FICO 04 shows 734 but that has a 69 month old 30-day late thanks to the ex-wife. Should have been old enough at that point to have little effect but still think it had SOME. Also has 2 new accounts in past year and a $25K intallment loan. EX FICO 04 at same time was 758 and TU FICO 98 was 755.

Current EQ FICO is 756 but that is FICO 8 model now. It has $76K revolving and 41% Utilization. No new accounts, not even an inquiry. Still showing reason for hurting the score as #1 Utilization, #2 Amount. There is no #3 but that could be the new model.

I've learned that any one big negative takes you down a path in the algorithm that gives you a maximum score possible. You need to remove the big negatives or you are stuck. You don't get far until the listed reasons affecting your score become minor issues. Now if we can just figure out what is major and what is minor...... 

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Scary, I should probably deleverage a bit in the next few months! 

But I really want to know which creditors have weak hands, these are the ones that will kick you when you are down, and I want insight into this. The creditors that don't really let you access the limits they grant you. These are the ones I don't need in my portfolio.

I'll keep reporting.

[NRB525]

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@gen-specific wrote:

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@GregB wrote:

Typically about 750 or so. Oldest report that I've saved in the same EQ FICO 04 shows 734 but that has a 69 month old 30-day late thanks to the ex-wife. Should have been old enough at that point to have little effect but still think it had SOME. Also has 2 new accounts in past year and a $25K intallment loan. EX FICO 04 at same time was 758 and TU FICO 98 was 755.

Current EQ FICO is 756 but that is FICO 8 model now. It has $76K revolving and 41% Utilization. No new accounts, not even an inquiry. Still showing reason for hurting the score as #1 Utilization, #2 Amount. There is no #3 but that could be the new model.

I've learned that any one big negative takes you down a path in the algorithm that gives you a maximum score possible. You need to remove the big negatives or you are stuck. You don't get far until the listed reasons affecting your score become minor issues. Now if we can just figure out what is major and what is minor...... 

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Scary, I should probably deleverage a bit in the next few months! 

But I really want to know which creditors have weak hands, these are the ones that will kick you when you are down, and I want insight into this. The creditors that don't really let you access the limits they grant you. These are the ones I don't need in my portfolio.

I'll keep reporting.

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Which cards are carrying this $100k load and how much?