topic Re: Leaving card at $0 balance in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Leaving card at $0 balance

RW771 — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:56:25 GMT

ok so I know this sounds like a silly question, but what affect does leaving a department store card at a $0 balance have? I paid it off before my last statement reported and it reported as a $0 balance. I haven't used it since paying it down and it will be reporting tomorrow, still as a $0 balance.

I had been working on improving my credit scores the past few months and now that I've gotten approved and will be closing on my house in 2 weeks, I'm not so overly concerned with playing the balance game in order to gain as many points as possible. Will the balance reporting as $0 for a 2nd time have a negative impact on my score?

TIA!

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:18:25 GMT

i assume it'll lower your utilization thus raising your score so no, it won't have a negative impact

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

Booner72 — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:13:52 GMT

Only if THAT CARD is your only revolving could it hurt your score. All 0 balances is bad for the FICO bc they think you aren't using your credit responsibly. Like, just not using it at all. Stupid, I know. So let one card report a small balance.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

morganirish — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:31:28 GMT

YMMV- a couple of years ago I had one cc with a 300. cl. Whenever I let so much as a dollar report my score would either go down or not change. But whenever I let 0 report my score would go up. Now that I have several cc's, I get dinged when I let them all report 0.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

GregB — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:24:12 GMT

@morganirish wrote:
YMMV- a couple of years ago I had one cc with a 300. cl. Whenever I let so much as a dollar report my score would either go down or not change. But whenever I let 0 report my score would go up. Now that I have several cc's, I get dinged when I let them all report 0.

If you only have one CC then it wouldn't be very unusual for it to report $0. If you use credit to the point where you have several, it does seem a bit unusual for all of them to report $0.

The original poster's question was will his FICO be affected if a card that reported $0 last month does the same this month. I am quite sure the answer to THAT question is "no".

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

morganirish — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:47:38 GMT

yes I understand what the OP asked. I was replying my experience. YMMV.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

AndySoCal — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 02:53:35 GMT

I would say no it would not hurt your score. I have 5 credit cards usually two or three will have a balance. I have a VISA and store card that have not reported a balance in months I do not see any difference in my scores.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

marty56 — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:38:06 GMT

For my credit profile, TU never dings me for 0% util but I loose a few points on EQ. Best to test it out. LOL shouldn't be too hard to get a balance to report. In any case having your util controlled by being CC debt free is an ideal state for any credit profile.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 19:34:01 GMT

+1 to Gregg.

Re: Leaving card at $0 balance

RobertEG — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:57:49 GMT

While its exact weighting in scoring is not known, FICO also scores the number of open revolving lines of credit with a balance, apparently as a percent of all your open revolving lines of credit. Thus, a single $ on a card would score it from a card with no balance to a card with a balance, thus increasing your percent of revolving with a balance. The lower your total number of revolving accounts, the greater the impact of that one card on calculating the % with balances.

Just something else to ponder.....