Using an old CC after nearly 2 yrs

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone, last week I got a scorewatch alert regarding my revolving debt utilization stating that my usage had increased reducing my FICO by 8 points!!!

Being confused I had to buy a scorewatch report to see how this could be because I had not purchased anything new on credit.  In my efforts to calculate the usage percentage they were calculating, I noticed that they eliminated two old open CC accounts (dell and roomstore) from the utilization formula.  One last reported in Feb or March of 2006 and the other I think was in 2004.

WIth that, I have two questions:

1).  If I go and make a small $40 purchase on my dell account, and let it report will I get dinged points for applying activity to a dorman account?  If so, how much?....And,

2).  Will the CL to this card be added back to my utilization formula?

[Anonymous]

I'd have to ask myself why they fell off your CR? Have you called them to see if the cc's have been closed? Or are they still in good standing, and only dormant?

If they are(still in good standing), putting a little something on them, would help, I would think.

Good luck.

Message Edited by Sylviatob on 10-18-2007 01:10 PM

[Anonymous]

Well, i've confirmed with Dell that this card is still in good standing.  I didn't call roomstore because i don't plan to charge anything to that account. 

Anyway, my dell account is still good and I am thinking of just making a very small purchase to have it report and thus include the CL back into my utilization calculation.  I was just wondering if any points will be taken away from using a Dormant account.  This has happened to me before but the points I lost was probably about 5-7 points.

[Anonymous]

It might in fact, help raise the score a few points, as crazy as it seems.

From what I've heard on the board, if you keep the utilization at a very low 1%-9%, that's the sweet spot the CRA's like to see. More so it seems, than a zero balance.

Yeah I know, go figure.