topic Re: Can you make too many payments too a card? in Credit Cards

Can you make too many payments too a card?

Joecooltech — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:27:34 GMT

So I asked the question the other day if you can run too much through a credit card.? And the consensus seems to be as long as it’s within my income I was fine. The next question I have that would be secondary to that is is there an algorithm For too many payments. I have this incessant habit of paying things off soon as they post where I might let them sit for a day or two but not much longer than that. Example would be since opening a new card in September and have a made every day it is there a negative to this ?

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:39:05 GMT

Some banks, yes.

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Such-thing-as-TOO-MANY-payments/m-p/4799180#M1397300

Some banks limit you the first month (Amex) others limit you to a certain number a month.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

UpperNwGuy — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:48:05 GMT

Yes, you can spook the bank by making a lot of payments each month. Try to limit yourself to 2 or at most 3 payments a month.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

kdm31091 — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 13:48:37 GMT

It is IMO overkill to be paying every single charge as it posts. You won't do anything good with that, and may set off a flag with certain lenders.

If you want a zero balance reporting, just PIF before the statement cuts. No need to pay everything as you go along. I would cut back to at least biweekly.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 14:00:31 GMT

FWIW, someone I know who works as an underwriter said that their (tiny local) bank considers a person who pays things off every few days as "not a responsible user of credit".

Their reasoning is that a person who can manage balances and payment schedules, etc is more responsible to them than someone who is scared and pays constantly. It's a "lol" situation but this is a tiny community bank, not a huge one.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

HeavenOhio — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 14:45:10 GMT

I suppose it depends on the bank. AMEX will let you make five payments in a day, so I doubt that they're among the banks that have an opinion on the matter. Based on posts here, I think you're more likely to be under the radar if you're revolving balances or paying down a balance transfer.

I think the best thing is to do what makes sense to you rather break your brains trying to figure out what a bank might think. If your balance has reached a point where a payment seems to be in order, make a payment. If you're giving the card an occasional swipe to keep it active, pay it off when the charge posts. If a statement cuts with a balance, PIF anytime before the due date and maybe include recently posted transactions along with that payment.

The bottom line is that it seems silly to constantly make payments unless circumstances dictate doing that. On the other hand, it seems equally silly not to make a payment when you feel that you're ready to do so.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 14:54:53 GMT

I wish we had a master thread on any lenders who let you overpay and let you "extend" your limit that way. I don't even know if this is a thing anymore or maybe if it's been regulated out of existence. I know back in the 90s this was common -- I would write a check to Amex for $5000 against my $2500 limit (or whatever it was) and back then they let me use the full $7500 because of my negative balance. Same was true with some other lenders, I can't even remember who I used back then, though. I think US Bank back in the 90s allowed it but not 100%.

For me, that was a super easy way to manage my balances -- I never let my balance go "positive", I always just used my "credit" portion.

Haven't tried that today, though, because if I run a credit on Capital One, they mail me a check monthly, ugh. Will try with Chase in 2018 somehow.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

CreditCuriosity — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:26:29 GMT

Honestly I don't think it matters.. I don't pay off my balacne everytime it posts, but I treat my CC's like a debit card and have no issue doing say 5 payments a month on Amex/Chase. This has been discussed beyond belief here and people will have their feelings and you won't be able to change them regardless as I have me feeling it doesn't matter and I have pretty much every big lender and never had a issue. If I see a decent size balance say > 150 on a given card I will just hit pay and move on and have no issues with getting new cards with said bank or CLI's etc.

Long story short do what you want as people will argue both ways on this subject. I am just a bit OCD myself since messing up my credit in the past and prefer to stay on top of it and keep my own self honest by paying frequently not allowing myself to overspend. Thank is just how "I" prefer to do things. Suppose I could be making a few dollars on some interest if I used the grace period fully, but whatever.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

HeavenOhio — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:19:21 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I wish we had a master thread on any lenders who let you overpay and let you "extend" your limit that way.

I almost had a chance to test that with AMEX recently. I paid my current balance plus the one pending charge. But the pending posted at the same time the payment did. It would have been interesting to see what my available credit would have been had the pending charge waited a day to post.

I think what's more likely to happen is that one's available credit will behave the same way whether one's current balance is positive or negative. Pending charges will still be deducted from one's available credit until they post. However, once charges post, available credit will be restored as usual. You wouldn't necessarily be extending your limit by paying in advance. But you'd be eliminating processing time in getting your limit back.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:46:57 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
I think what's more likely to happen is that one's available credit will behave the same way whether one's current balance is positive or negative. Pending charges will still be deducted from one's available credit until they post. However, once charges post, available credit will be restored as usual. You wouldn't necessarily be extending your limit by paying in advance. But you'd be eliminating processing time in getting your limit back.

Most likely true and that's what I assumed.

It has literally been 20 years since I really had prime credit cards so I'm still learning all of the new things floating around.

I did notice on my US Bank card (got it in October) that when it wouldn't show my limit on the website (I believe they fixed that), if I had a credit balance it showed my available credit as just the credit balance.

I should push a payment to them tomorrow ($0 balance now) to see if the available credit figure goes up from $500 (or down from $500 because of a website glitch).

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

marty56 — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 16:32:29 GMT

Some CCCs limit the number of payments you can make withing a certain timeframe. PNC does this.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

CreditCuriosity — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 16:42:04 GMT

@marty56 wrote:
Some CCCs limit the number of payments you can make withing a certain timeframe. PNC does this.

Can always push a payment and they can't limit that, but I use pull payments and they certainly can limit that if they so choose. Only bank I knew of before that that limited payment was Credit One as use to work for them in IT of course PNC as you stated and Amex only for your first statement on a new account. Sure there are others out there, but as stated pushing payments can be done and overcome that obstacle.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

HeavenOhio — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 16:50:37 GMT

With AMEX, the limitations apply to a new payment account and not a new card. And you're not really limited until your payments add up to your statement balance and possibly one prepayment beyond that.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Shadowfactor — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 17:27:35 GMT

I make payments about once a week sometimes more then that if the balance gets high. I also make payments out of multiple accounts at once. Say business charges come out of a different checking account I have just for business reimbursement.

I’ve done this Amex, US bank and starting to with BoA. Never had any problems. Amex will let you run a credit balance and extend you the additional available credit. I got a credit for a return I did in the store. I had already paid that charge off. So for like 4 days. I had a credit line of 2035 when it’s normally 2K

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

SkyCommander — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 17:53:44 GMT

I've pushed a lot of payments from Discover Checking (now using Chase) 10-20 payments a month. I know it's overkill and weird but it's a habit I had since Discover used give you 10 cents a bill pay. I would use that as incentive to pay each charge. I don't pad my CL I add up the charges and pay exactly that amount with receipts. It helped me spot a fradulent charge cashier added their own tip to my food order.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

OmarR — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 18:34:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
FWIW, someone I know who works as an underwriter said that their (tiny local) bank considers a person who pays things off every few days as "not a responsible user of credit".

Their reasoning is that a person who can manage balances and payment schedules, etc is more responsible to them than someone who is scared and pays constantly. It's a "lol" situation but this is a tiny community bank, not a huge one.

You know what's so silly about that underwriter's statement?

He/She is ASSUMING that someone who is on a different payment schedule (daily, every 3 days, weekly, etc) is acting out of "being scared" or some kind of panic and/or lack of self-control.

I pay my CC a MINIMUM of once per week, which means at least 4 times per billing cycle. In reality, it ends up being between 5-10 times each month. If I make a large purchase, I pay it off as soon as that big amount posts.

That is simply MY schedule. MY method of supervision. MY method of catching improper transaction amounts & fraud.

ABCD, you LOL'ed at the underwriter's statement, so I know you don't agree with it. If my CC flagged me for my multiple payment methods, I would cancel them in a heartbeat and and go with someone else.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

UncleB — Tue, 19 Dec 2017 23:09:37 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I wish we had a master thread on any lenders who let you overpay and let you "extend" your limit that way.
I almost had a chance to test that with AMEX recently. I paid my current balance plus the one pending charge. But the pending posted at the same time the payment did. It would have been interesting to see what my available credit would have been had the pending charge waited a day to post.

I think what's more likely to happen is that one's available credit will behave the same way whether one's current balance is positive or negative. Pending charges will still be deducted from one's available credit until they post. However, once charges post, available credit will be restored as usual. You wouldn't necessarily be extending your limit by paying in advance. But you'd be eliminating processing time in getting your limit back.

I can confirm that Capital One still operates this way.

Back in the summer I tried to make a payment from my WF account using their mobile app, and I got an error message. Instead of fooling with it I made the payment from USAA instead, with the intent of transferring the funds over from WF later. The next day I realized the payment at WF had actually been submitted successfully, so I had sent Capital One two identical payments for the month.

The amount was just north of $1.5k, and thankfully I was in a position to 'float' that much a second time without being in a bind. Over the next few weeks, I had a credit balance for the amount of the overpayment, but my available credit was never more than my usual credit limit.

As charges would be made my available credit would be reduced, then once the charge posted the credit balance would be reduced (and the available credit restored).

I can also share that 'back in the day' with an Orchard Bank card (that's now my Capital One QS MC) I once needed to make a purchase that was more than my credit line. I called to see if I could make a payment to create a credit balance then charge against it and was told that it wouldn't work, and that any charges over my credit line would be denied; the CSR then suggested a CLI. (This was one of the two times that card got a CLI when it was still HBSC - they gave me an extra $250, which at the time was significant.)

Later on I read up on 'bust-out fraud' and the reasoning behind not allowing a prepayment to artificially increase a credit line made sense.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

Chickenpotpie — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 03:19:49 GMT

None of the banks I work with care. lol If they all of a sudden started to, I'd look for one who didn't

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

arkane — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 04:34:24 GMT

@marty56 wrote:
Some CCCs limit the number of payments you can make withing a certain timeframe. PNC does this.

Same with Discover. If you make payments more frequently than every 3 days (or perhaps 3 business days), they'll put a 7 day "soft hold" on your account in that the payment will be credited against the outstanding balance, but won't restore your credit limit.

I only know this because they give you clear warning then scheduling a (pull) payment if you attempt to pay too frequently, so you'll never be caught blindsided.

Re: Can you make too many payments too a card?

arkane — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 04:39:37 GMT

@OmarR wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
FWIW, someone I know who works as an underwriter said that their (tiny local) bank considers a person who pays things off every few days as "not a responsible user of credit".

Their reasoning is that a person who can manage balances and payment schedules, etc is more responsible to them than someone who is scared and pays constantly. It's a "lol" situation but this is a tiny community bank, not a huge one.
You know what's so silly about that underwriter's statement?

He/She is ASSUMING that someone who is on a different payment schedule (daily, every 3 days, weekly, etc) is acting out of "being scared" or some kind of panic and/or lack of self-control.

I pay my CC a MINIMUM of once per week, which means at least 4 times per billing cycle. In reality, it ends up being between 5-10 times each month. If I make a large purchase, I pay it off as soon as that big amount posts.

That is simply MY schedule. MY method of supervision. MY method of catching improper transaction amounts & fraud.

ABCD, you LOL'ed at the underwriter's statement, so I know you don't agree with it. If my CC flagged me for my multiple payment methods, I would cancel them in a heartbeat and and go with someone else.

Exactly. My rule of thumb is if a single transaction is >10% of my available limit on that particular card, I pay it off as soon as it posts, Partly out of habit, partly to always keep an optimum util. (actually through experimentation I found my optimum util is around 7%)

That and after recently acquiring 3 new cards, I've been obsessively paying down them as I go to make sure I don't accidentally let more than 1 card report a balance. Complete overkill? Absolutely. But playing the FICO game requires effort.