topic Re: Inactive account becomes active in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 16:27:56 GMT

I've heard about this alert, but I've never seen it myself.

I got the alert today from Equifax, pertaining to my AMEX card: "An account that has been inactive for more than 3 months has become recently active… Date of last activity: 12/01/2017 --> 03/01/2018."

It was accompanied by a four-point score drop. But we know about alerts; I'm 99% certain that the alert wasn't tied to the score change. Rather, I'd pin it to a second card reporting a positive balance. My Equifax score always shifts predictably whenever I go from one to two cards or vice versa.

I'd call "more than three months" to be a stretch as I only had two statements that didn't report positive balances. The last positive balance on this card was in December. But arguing the system isn't the point. The card gets used every month, though, generally pretty heavily.

I've let my Barclays card go for up to about six months without reporting a positive balance, and I've never seen the alert. Like the AMEX card, it gets used each month. The difference I see is that Barclays reports my "Date of Last Payment." Actually, all my cards except AMEX do that.

If things go as planned, I'm going to let my next card to report cut a zero balance. At the end of the month, I'll let a card report a positive balance that hasn't done so in over a year. Like the Barclays card, it's been used every month and has a current "Date of Last Payment." I'll bet that I don't see the alert.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

Thomas_Thumb — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 01:16:26 GMT

More than a few posters have made mention of losing points when an inactive account 1st reports activity.

I believe various credit card issuers report accounts differently. On my CRA report summaries some of my accounts report a zero balance each month when not used but others show a blank. This may be why accounts get classified as inactive differently by various monitoring services. The below is from my Experian credit report. My TransUnion report shows the same except an "X" is used instead of "ND". Card activity is based on data as reported by the creditors.

Fidelity Visa Account - Most non use months are blank (no data) which represents inactivity but some show $0.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 20:20:53 GMT

Interesting information here. I've never noticed that difference regarding Amex.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 17:24:47 GMT

I'm back to one card with a positive balance, and my four points came back. As I mentioned, I don't think the point drop was tied to the so-called inactive card because it's the shift that always occurs.

In a a few days, the card that hasn't cut a positive balance in over a year will report one. I expect the typical four-point drop due to the second card reporting. But as I mentioned, because this card reports a "date of last payment," I'd be surprised to see the alert.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

909 — Sun, 25 Mar 2018 00:34:33 GMT

Yep, this happens with my AMEX cards too. I use this them a lot every month but most months pay them to zero before they report. A few weeks ago I got an alert for one AMEX card becoming active after 6 months and the other after 8 months of inactivity accompanied with a 3 point FICO 8 drop most likely due to two more cards recording a balance. A year ago this alert was accompanied by a 22 point drop which I got back the following month after dropping my util.

I think this alert is intended to let you know that a sock drawered card is being used but it doesn’t work well with how AMEX reports balances.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 17:02:15 GMT

Catching up here.

I let my card report a positive balance for the first time in 15 months. I got the four point ding that I expected, but as I said, I'm sure it's due to having a second card reporting a positive balance. There was no Equifax alert for an inactive card becoming active. My guess is that it's because this card reports the "Date of Last Payment."

Re: Inactive account becomes active

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 17:45:04 GMT

I got this message once for my Citi Costco Card on CreditKarma, I have since had cards not reporting a balance for more than 3 months and never got the message again.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

jlitnns — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 21:27:21 GMT

Weird, I haven't used my Ashley Furniture card for almost 18 months and it's always reported as 'OK.' I actually called to cancel because I hadn't used it and it was stuck at $2k, CSR said that they will auto-cancel after 18 months no activity usually. I CLI'd just for the heck of it and got an additional $5.5k so I made a small purchase on it and will let it report and keep it around for another year and then get rid of it.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

AppHappyTog — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 03:59:16 GMT

Same thing happened on EQ for me a couple weeks ago after I used my buckle store card and paid the balance before the statement cut. It had probably been about 2-3 months since I’d last used it so I found it a little odd. Didn’t lose any points but this is an interesting read.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

AppHappyTog — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 04:05:05 GMT

@jlitnns wrote:
Weird, I haven't used my Ashley Furniture card for almost 18 months and it's always reported as 'OK.' I actually called to cancel because I hadn't used it and it was stuck at $2k, CSR said that they will auto-cancel after 18 months no activity usually. I CLI'd just for the heck of it and got an additional $5.5k so I made a small purchase on it and will let it report and keep it around for another year and then get rid of it.

Funny that they say that- I had a Nautilus (home gym junk) card I got when I was 18 because because I thought I wanted one. I was told a similar thing and I just assumed it was closed out. Low and behold when I pulled my reports in September to prepare myself to deal with my mess of my credit...that account was now “Capital One- Nautilus” was still reporting to TU as “ok” every month 12 years later never used the card even once. But hey, thanks for 12 years of solid reporting!

Re: Inactive account becomes active

jlitnns — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:09:59 GMT

You can thank this guy for punching the 'ok' button for those 12 years...

Re: Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:24:32 GMT

@AppHappyTog wrote:
Same thing happened on EQ for me a couple weeks ago after I used my buckle store card and paid the balance before the statement cut. It had probably been about 2-3 months since I’d last used it so I found it a little odd. Didn’t lose any points but this is an interesting read.

@AppHappyTog, does your Buckle card report the "date of last payment"? I'm guessing it must if you paid before the statement cut and you got the alert.

In contrast, AMEX doesn't report the date of last payment. I use the card every month and got the alert after two consecutive months of reporting balances of zero.

I have a several cards that routinely report zero for several months in a row (or more). They all report the date of last payment and don't generate the alert when they do report a positive balance.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

AppHappyTog — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:50:18 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
@AppHappyTog wrote:
Same thing happened on EQ for me a couple weeks ago after I used my buckle store card and paid the balance before the statement cut. It had probably been about 2-3 months since I’d last used it so I found it a little odd. Didn’t lose any points but this is an interesting read.
@AppHappyTog, does your Buckle card report the "date of last payment"? I'm guessing it must if you paid before the statement cut and you got the alert.

In contrast, AMEX doesn't report the date of last payment. I use the card every month and got the alert after two consecutive months of reporting balances of zero.

I have a several cards that routinely report zero for several months in a row (or more). They all report the date of last payment and don't generate the alert when they do report a positive balance.

Just looked because that makes sense, but it’s not showing any date of last payment on EQ where the alert was enervated from. Maybe internally something I’m not seeing on my report from my end?

Re: Inactive account becomes active

AppHappyTog — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 16:51:16 GMT

@jlitnns wrote:
You can thank this guy for punching the 'ok' button for those 12 years...

Re: Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 17:44:33 GMT

@AppHappyTog wrote:
@HeavenOhio wrote:
@AppHappyTog wrote:
Same thing happened on EQ for me a couple weeks ago after I used my buckle store card and paid the balance before the statement cut. It had probably been about 2-3 months since I’d last used it so I found it a little odd. Didn’t lose any points but this is an interesting read.
@AppHappyTog, does your Buckle card report the "date of last payment"? I'm guessing it must if you paid before the statement cut and you got the alert.
Just looked because that makes sense, but it’s not showing any date of last payment on EQ where the alert was enervated from. Maybe internally something I’m not seeing on my report from my end?

@AppHappyTog, which credit monitoring service are you looking at? Do you see a date of last payment field for any of your other cards?

When I look at my myFICO reports, that field isn't shown at all. On Credit Karma, the field is included. But while balances are current, payment information lags for Equifax lags a month behind TransUnion.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

AppHappyTog — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:47:27 GMT

@HeavenOhio wrote:
@AppHappyTog wrote:
@HeavenOhio wrote:
@AppHappyTog wrote:
Same thing happened on EQ for me a couple weeks ago after I used my buckle store card and paid the balance before the statement cut. It had probably been about 2-3 months since I’d last used it so I found it a little odd. Didn’t lose any points but this is an interesting read.
@AppHappyTog, does your Buckle card report the "date of last payment"? I'm guessing it must if you paid before the statement cut and you got the alert.
Just looked because that makes sense, but it’s not showing any date of last payment on EQ where the alert was enervated from. Maybe internally something I’m not seeing on my report from my end?
@AppHappyTog, which credit monitoring service are you looking at? Do you see a date of last payment field for any of your other cards?

When I look at my myFICO reports, that field isn't shown at all. On Credit Karma, the field is included. But while balances are current, payment information lags for Equifax lags a month behind TransUnion.

I checked MyFICO reports since my 3B just updated a couple weeks ago and also monitor with experian which just updated all bureaus this week. I’ll take a look at CK, I never even look at that app haha.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Apr 2018 18:22:50 GMT

Interesting Post. Just for a recent data point, I got a myFico alert for Equifax on 4-12-18. Status was "an account that has been inactive for more than 3 months has become recently active". My score went from 709 to 702. That was the first Equifax change since 4-5-18. There were two other changes that reported that day both were related to mid-cycle Chase payments causing my two Chase accounts to be reported as decreased by $703 and $1237 (each ot $0). It's hard to say what caused the score drop as there were no other changes, so I started looking to see if it was related to the inactive account becoming active, which was a Pier 1 card that I used in the store recently to buy a large piece of furniture and get a 20% discount and 3x reward points and paid off before the balance before the statement cut.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

jlitnns — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:23:53 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Interesting Post. Just for a recent data point, I got a myFico alert for Equifax on 4-12-18. Status was "an account that has been inactive for more than 3 months has become recently active". My score went from 709 to 702. That was the first Equifax change since 4-5-18. There were two other changes that reported that day both were related to mid-cycle Chase payments causing my two Chase accounts to be reported as decreased by $703 and $1237 (each ot $0). It's hard to say what caused the score drop as there were no other changes, so I started looking to see if it was related to the inactive account becoming active, which was a Pier 1 card that I used in the store recently to buy a large piece of furniture and get a 20% discount and 3x reward points and paid off before the balance before the statement cut.

I posted that my Ashley Furniture card hadn't been used and so I purchased something and let it report on the statement and MF updated as well and said that an account that has been inactive for 20 months now became active again. My Equifax score jumped 8 points though, the only change was that account became active, the balance increased 100% by $43. Weird. Anyway, paid off and now not worried about it, it has never said inactive or showed anything other than paid as agreed or OK on my CB's.

Re: Inactive account becomes active

Shadowfactor — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:51:25 GMT

Question
Does a card have to report a balance every so often in order to be considered active ?

I have 4 cards I use throughout the month but pay off to zero before statement closing so they don’t report a balance. It’s always the same cards that I let report a zero balance.

I was under the impression that the payment activity would keep the cards active ?

Re: Inactive account becomes active

HeavenOhio — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:05:31 GMT

Reviewing what I posted earlier…

My AMEX card doesn't report the "date of last payment." After two months of zero balances, I got the EQ "inactive card has become active" alert.

My test card (Capital One) reports the date of last payment. It had reported balances of zero for about 14 consecutive months, but it had seen usage each month. I didn't get the EQ alert.

I have another card (Barclays), that reports the date of last payment, gets used every month, reports a non-zero balance every five or six months, and has never generated the alert.

I don't know that this is enough to fully answer the question, but it's the difference I see with my cards.