@Anonymous wrote:
Hi llecs,
if my recollection serves me well and from previous posts I know some of the contributors work for FairIsaac. Nothing wrong with that. I myself contribute posts on community boards supporting the product I work on.
Sure, zero balance is best. However, if the point of the score is to assess risk to lenders, an eight dollar balance by itself should not cause 12 points worth of concern. 2-3 points should suffice :-) And it *is* ironic that the people with highest scores need lending power least.
We are advised to use credit cards when shopping for a couple of reasons:
1. If someone is to steal your card number, you are better off if that card is a credit card than if it is the card linked to your bank account;
2. disputes with merchants are better handled on credit cards than on bank account cards.
There are no paid actors or posters on here. If that's so, then I'm missing my check. 
There is an admin on here who works directly for FICO, but he runs the board and it is seldom he posts in here.
What's the definition of "risk"? Your definition will be different from mine, others, lenders, and so on. It's a relative term. I do know that FICO creates the score for their main clients, the lenders. It's safe to say they have clout on how the FICO score is formulated because it is their money that's at risk when they lend money to borrowers. I bet it is their definition of risk that's at play. If you go from $0 to $whatever, in the eyes of a lender, then you are placing more of a reliance on credit and aren't paying down the balances immediately. Now $8 is silly, IMO, but a lender might see the added balance as a risk because there are less PIF accounts.
Thankfully, CC utilization is a snapshot in time of what your balances look like in relation to the CL. If you paid off the $8 balance today, and it reported that next, with all else being equal, then your score will go back to exactly where it was before. There's no lingering effects. Likewise, if I maxed out all of my CCs today and they report that next month, my scores will drop 70-100 points easy. If I paid off all that debt, by scores will go back to where they were before (assuming nothing fell off, no added inquiries, no lates, no missing anything, etc.).
With regards to using CCs, I'm with you, they are better than a debit card. I recently was a victim of ID theft with a BofA CC. BofA covered it immediately and I only lost the use of that card for a few days while they shipped a replacement. With debit, you can't always do that. At the same time of my event, someone else here in town went through the same exact thing, but she used a CU debit card. The CU took the money and it took her a couple of weeks to get it back. Yes, disputes with merchants are better too. A bank or CU won't always help at the same level as a CC. To add to your list at #3, you can't use a debit card everywhere or if you can, there are limitations (e.g. car rental, some hotels, etc.). The key to managing balances is to know when the CC reports next. You can max out your cards monthly, but if you PIF before they report the balance (usually based on your statement and statement date), then your score will be OK.