topic Re: Utilization and credit score relationship in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Utilization and credit score relationship

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 02:39:20 GMT

My utilization recently went up from 5% to 14%. I received an alert about a balance and score change. I looked up my score and 2 scores went up. Experian went up by 12pts and Equifax by 2pts. What's going on? I thought the relationship between utlization rate and score was inverse? I've tried to raise my score by been keeping my utilization between 1%-4% most times and i rarely see that much change in score. Am i missing something? I'm confused.

Re: Utilization and credit score relationship

EW800 — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 01:45:28 GMT

I am far from an expert, but wondering if anything else might have changed - age of a baddie, something fell off or similar? Through my experience, going over the 9% range usually results in score drops. Seems like something else must have changed or somehow went into a different bucket?

Re: Utilization and credit score relationship

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 10:08:23 GMT

For people with young credit or new accounts a lot of times the aging of these accounts will offset changes like this. I typically see jumps at 3-6-12 months from adding a bunch of new accounts.

Re: Utilization and credit score relationship

NRB525 — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 13:49:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My utilization recently went up from 5% to 14%. I received an alert about a balance and score change. I looked up my score and 2 scores went up. Experian went up by 12pts and Equifax by 2pts. What's going on? I thought the relationship between utlization rate and score was inverse? I've tried to raise my score by been keeping my utilization between 1%-4% most times and i rarely see that much change in score. Am i missing something? I'm confused.

+1 to EricDET

OP, score changes have many inputs. How old are each of your cards?

Re: Utilization and credit score relationship

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:18:16 GMT

5 years but it shows 3 years average for all.