topic Re: Balance Too High? in Credit Cards

Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:44:54 GMT

I recently used Amex CreditSecure to pull my 3 credit reports. It's in the high 700s, but the report says one of the things lowering my score is "AMOUNT OWED ON REVOLVING ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH." My utilization is below 10% so I don't understand the comment. Any thoughts?

Re: Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:58:29 GMT

What is owed on each account? Maybe just one is high?

Re: Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:11:16 GMT

The highest is a FIA card with a balance of $2.8k and $25k CL. I also have an Amex Blue card with a $500 balance and a $18k CL. It doesn't seem to have hurt my estimated score. I just don't understand the comment.

Re: Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 00:21:13 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I recently used Amex CreditSecure to pull my 3 credit reports. It's in the high 700s, but the report says one of the things lowering my score is "AMOUNT OWED ON REVOLVING ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH." My utilization is below 10% so I don't understand the comment. Any thoughts?

maybe one specific card has higher ultil than the others

Re: Balance Too High?

larinoriani — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:50:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I recently used Amex CreditSecure to pull my 3 credit reports. It's in the high 700s, but the report says one of the things lowering my score is "AMOUNT OWED ON REVOLVING ACCOUNTS IS TOO HIGH." My utilization is below 10% so I don't understand the comment. Any thoughts?

They try to give you the reasons why your score IS NOT higher. Basically if you had smaller balances reporting, your score would be higher.

It's also a generic reason, so it will show up, whenever your balances play a roll to keep your scores down.

Re: Balance Too High?

andre181 — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 02:54:45 GMT

I recently read another post here where that user was also getting that message, but though it was wrong.

I am also getting that "Balance owed on revolving accts is too high" message, and I KNOW its wrong because I am currently revolving $99 according to CR.

Re: Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:06:22 GMT

I was getting the same message and my utilization is low too. Some of it I think has to do because the balance on my credit cards gets reported before I even get the bill. Anyways, I called two of my cc companies to ask for CLI so I hope that helps somewhat.

Re: Balance Too High?

haulingthescoreup — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 15:25:07 GMT

Do realize, everyone, that this score service provides FAKO scores, and the advice that comes along with FAKO scores is also FAKO.

In other words, the scores result from a different score formula than FICO uses, so the advice is what would make the FAKO score formula "happy."

OP might or might not get the same negative comment from a FICO score report.

It's not unusual for people with otherwise clean reports to get a comment like this on a FICO report, though. If you look at the list of FICO scoring reason codes, you'll see that there are 40 different ways that you can go wrong with your credit reports. As your reports get better, the formula has to dig deeper to find negatives, and that might include criticizing 10% util as high.

But again, the problem here is that this is FAKO advice, and we don't know whether FICO would say the same thing.

Re: Balance Too High?

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:13:02 GMT

Thank you all. Sounds like nothing much to worry about.