MYFICO service question

[Anonymous]

When I signed up for the My FICO it told me that I have high utilization.  Part of that is because I reduced the credit limits.  I worked to pay off the amount of debt that I did have, and it has been paid off now for a couple of months.  Why then is my status on My FICO not changing in that category?  Do they only update it once a year or something?

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

This question really needs to be on the myFICO Product Feedback board, but I'll give it a shot. Never mind, it just got moved!  

First of all, don't reduce credit limits if you can avoid it, or unless you're worried about the temptation of overcharging. High credit limits are good, as you have discovered.

Secondly, you won't see your new score until you (or someone else) pulls your report. Your score doesn't exist until then. It's just in potential form, so to speak.

edit to add: Which service did you sign up for? "MY FICO" could include Scorewatch, TU Quarterly Monitoring, the Suze Orman kit, or a single, one-time FICO Standard score. If it was just a Standard score, you'll need to purchase another one to see a change. If you signed up for others, you've prepaid for at least one more, depending on the product, and if it was Scorewatch, you should get an alert for a score increase. If it's Scorewatch, be sure that you have set your target score to the one that you already have, although there's a possiblity that this might cross an alert.