topic Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL! in Understanding FICO® Scoring

35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 20:58:40 GMT

So, I put lots of things on lots of cards, and pay them off a few times a month. When I got my Amex Delta Gold (that I shouldn't have applied for at the time), they only gave me a $1k limit, and I have an authorized user. Well, none of my Amex cards ever get declined (I put about $40k per month on my business Platinum, and various misc amounts on the other personal ones), and I know others have said that all Amex cards can technically be NPSL depending on your relationship with Amex, but I don't even try to put charges through that are bigger than the limit, and I've never once pushed the "check spending ability" button. Well, I used the card a few times last month, and my authorized user used it for a few bigger transactions I wasn't aware of that amounted to about $1600 by the time the statement cut and before I had noticed, so that I could have otherwise paid it off.

Anyway, the statement amount posted to my credit reports, and because it was $1600 on a card that's supposed to have a $1000 limit, my scores went down about 35 points with a 157% utilization on that card!

I immediately panicked and paid every card I own down to a $0 balance, and while I'm happy they never declined any charges, pleeeeeease tell me my scores will jump back up next month if I keep everything paid down.....

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 21:11:55 GMT

They should.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

inthewoods — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 21:13:02 GMT

No worries, it’ll recover fine.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Anonymous — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 21:15:13 GMT

The whole random "soft pull" by other lenders just worried me for a min. But I suppose they would see it's only one card, and an Amex, and know that it's actually probably a good thing because they trust me? Or maybe it would look like I don't pay my bill and that's why it was over the limit. Anyway, what a drag to log in and see your scores drop by 35 points!

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

CreditCuriosity — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:21:03 GMT

Fico scores have no memories w/regards to this. When it shows up next month paid you will recover your points

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

TRC_WA — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:36:43 GMT

You'll be fine OP.

I let $4800 report on Sallie Mae last month... lost 6 points. I paid it off and then ran up $1400 in charges that reported the other day... got the 6 points back.

Contrary to rumors floating around here at myFICO the world will not end if you let a CC report a balance.

The $4800 balance was a Barclays card too... they haven't closed my account or CLD me either.

The entire 1-9% reporting game is totally unnecessary unless you are planning a big (car, house) purchase in the next few months. Why some people get all OCD about it I have no idea. If anything it doesn't look good to let your cards report $0 balances all the time... because if you ever do run up a big balance you have no history of being able to pay it off and THAT might spook your lenders.

My $0.02.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Ghoshida — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 22:38:24 GMT

@TRC_WA wrote:
You'll be fine OP.

I let $4800 report on Sallie Mae last month... lost 6 points. I paid it off and then ran up $1400 in charges that reported the other day... got the 6 points back.

Contrary to rumors floating around here at myFICO the world will not end if you let a CC report a balance.

The $4800 balance was a Barclays card too... they haven't closed my account or CLD me either.

The entire 1-9% reporting game is totally unnecessary unless you are planning a big (car, house) purchase in the next few months. Why some people get all OCD about it I have no idea. If anything it doesn't look good to let your cards report $0 balances all the time... because if you ever do run up a big balance you have no history of being able to pay it off and THAT might spook your lenders.

My $0.02.

Agree. Barclays scare may be a bit overrated. I carried about 80-90% balance with them for about 3-4 months; they didn't blink an eye. True, the CLI came the moment I paid it all down, but they didn't balance chase me. Sometimes that kind of stuff does happen, but the CCCs do want us to spend.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

taxi818 — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:05:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So, I put lots of things on lots of cards, and pay them off a few times a month. When I got my Amex Delta Gold (that I shouldn't have applied for at the time), they only gave me a $1k limit, and I have an authorized user. Well, none of my Amex cards ever get declined (I put about $40k per month on my business Platinum, and various misc amounts on the other personal ones), and I know others have said that all Amex cards can technically be NPSL depending on your relationship with Amex, but I don't even try to put charges through that are bigger than the limit, and I've never once pushed the "check spending ability" button. Well, I used the card a few times last month, and my authorized user used it for a few bigger transactions I wasn't aware of that amounted to about $1600 by the time the statement cut and before I had noticed, so that I could have otherwise paid it off.

Anyway, the statement amount posted to my credit reports, and because it was $1600 on a card that's supposed to have a $1000 limit, my scores went down about 35 points with a 157% utilization on that card!

I immediately panicked and paid every card I own down to a $0 balance, and while I'm happy they never declined any charges, pleeeeeease tell me my scores will jump back up next month if I keep everything paid down.....

Of course they will. utilization has absolutely no memory. not only will scores bounce back. but will be where they would as growning anyway. so its not really a issue.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Anonymous — Sat, 02 May 2015 18:25:40 GMT

So let's say I want bigger limits with the cards... Obviously they are letting me charge past my limit... Wait until next score next month? Or will Amex realize it's their card that caused the problem? Also, I'm reading 61 day and amount you want to request has changed... Ask for CLI on the small limit card they let me charge higher balances on, or ask for CLI on the card with the highest limit and later call and spread the limits around?

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

NRB525 — Sat, 02 May 2015 18:44:24 GMT

Any CL on an AMEX Revolver must be on that same card for 13 statements before it can be moved to another card.

If you want a higher limit on the Delta, ask for the CLI on the Delta. Or don't. I ran my Delta card up to near the $2k limit, this was after a year of regular PIF usage, and they auto CLI to $3k. You may not want to wait that long, but with the PIF it might be worthwhile to wait a bit and see what they do, if they give you an auto CLI. Then your base for the CLI request is higher, and there is no additional wait time.

At the very least, I would continue to charge up $900 on the Delta card then PIF because that is going to lead to good things. Don't stop using it now!

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

racer-x — Sun, 03 May 2015 11:50:44 GMT

You won't get all the pts back at once. You may get a little more than half back initially.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

NRB525 — Sun, 03 May 2015 14:35:59 GMT

@racer-x wrote:
You won't get all the pts back at once. You may get a little more than half back initially.

This is likely. FICO does not like being shocked. It takes a while to adjust to new information, in either direction, so it will take a bit to get back to normal.

At this point, however, the main objective of OP is to get a CLI, so if it were me, I'd keep using that Delta card and paying frequently. Coordinated with the AU, of course.

(which raises the question, why put an AU on a recently opened $1k limit card? I don't see any benefit for the AU in this situation, and the AU is probably being hurt just as badly or worse by the higher utilization.)

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Anonymous — Mon, 04 May 2015 15:01:11 GMT

I think there was a "receive bonus miles when adding an AU in the first 3 months" - some bonus to adding one...

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

cashnocredit — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 18:31:04 GMT

You get back your FICO 8's.

I recently ran a test on a Chase NPSL revolver by charging about 8k over the 18k siggy CL. Mostly, I was just curious whether such a large overrun would be approved. FICO dropped from the 800's to the 730's across all CRAs. Interestingly, my VS 3.0 score dropped over 150 points to 667. Total CLs is about 60k.

I always PIF but don't prepay. When the next statement posted (about 3.5k which is about 1.5k higher than my normal statement balance), my FICOs fully recovered to what I typically have with that utilization as did the VS 3.0 score.

So if there is a history effect, it is extremely small.

On a side note, the Chase statement only required the normal minimum payment, in that case a few hundred dollars. I was expecting the minimum payment to include the 8k over the CL per the standard NPSL revolver practice and so carefully read everything on the statement. There was simply no requrement to pay the 8k at that time.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

SouthJamaica — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 18:37:02 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
So let's say I want bigger limits with the cards... Obviously they are letting me charge past my limit... Wait until next score next month? Or will Amex realize it's their card that caused the problem? Also, I'm reading 61 day and amount you want to request has changed... Ask for CLI on the small limit card they let me charge higher balances on, or ask for CLI on the card with the highest limit and later call and spread the limits around?

LOL. Yeah, right. They're losing a lot of sleep over it, too, wondering how to make it up to you

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

RonM21 — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 21:14:17 GMT

Ymmv in how quickly all of the points come back, but in theory eventually they should come back. Give or take somw though, depending on any other changes in your file at that time.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Thomas_Thumb — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 01:26:02 GMT

@RM21 wrote:
Ymmv in how quickly all of the points come back, but in theory eventually they should come back. Give or take somw though, depending on any other changes in your file at that time.

I will be allowing my AMEX NPSL charge card to report an all time high balance this month. This will translate to balance/high balance = 100% utilization for the card. I anticipate no change in Classic Fico 08 score, possibly some impact on Bankcard Fico 08. I'll report back with results. I suspect my Fico 04 scores will take a hit but, not sure I'll pay for a 3B to find out.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

cashnocredit — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 17:57:13 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@RM21 wrote:
Ymmv in how quickly all of the points come back, but in theory eventually they should come back. Give or take somw though, depending on any other changes in your file at that time.
I will be allowing my AMEX NPSL charge card to report an all time high balance this month. This will translate to balance/high balance = 100% utilization for the card. I anticipate no change in Classic Fico 08 score, possibly some impact on Bankcard Fico 08. I'll report back with results. I suspect my Fico 04 scores will take a hit but, not sure I'll pay for a 3B to find out.

I have an Amex Plat charge card and have been tracking it for years. Also, Amex is by far my largest spend card and I typically put 2 to 3k a month on it but sometimes much larger amounts.

FICO 8 scores from TU and EX are unaffected regardless of high balance or reported balance. When the current balance and high balance amex reports is as much as 40k EQ, and only EQ, FICO 8 scores take a large hit though not as much as if the card was a revolver and maxed out. They more than recover the next month when normal balances report because the new high balance improves utilization. It appears the EQ's FICO 8 scores count Amex charge card high balances and balances in overall utilization but not individually. Also, there is an upper end, somewhere between 40k and 50k, that if the high balance exceeds the card will also be ignored for EQ FICO 8. FICO 4s have always ignored my Amex Plat across all CRAs.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

Thomas_Thumb — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 23:06:05 GMT

@cashnocredit wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@RM21 wrote:
Ymmv in how quickly all of the points come back, but in theory eventually they should come back. Give or take somw though, depending on any other changes in your file at that time.
I will be allowing my AMEX NPSL charge card to report an all time high balance this month. This will translate to balance/high balance = 100% utilization for the card. I anticipate no change in Classic Fico 08 score, possibly some impact on Bankcard Fico 08. I'll report back with results. I suspect my Fico 04 scores will take a hit but, not sure I'll pay for a 3B to find out.
I have an Amex Plat charge card and have been tracking it for years. Also, Amex is by far my largest spend card and I typically put 2 to 3k a month on it but sometimes much larger amounts.

FICO 8 scores from TU and EX are unaffected regardless of high balance or reported balance. When the current balance and high balance amex reports is as much as 40k EQ, and only EQ, FICO 8 scores take a large hit though not as much as if the card was a revolver and maxed out. They more than recover the next month when normal balances report because the new high balance improves utilization. It appears the EQ's FICO 8 scores count Amex charge card high balances and balances in overall utilization but not individually. Also, there is an upper end, somewhere between 40k and 50k, that if the high balance exceeds the card will also be ignored for EQ FICO 8. FICO 4s have always ignored my Amex Plat across all CRAs.

Thanks for the info. My experience with my AMEX NPSL charge card is that EQ Fico score 5 (Fico 04 model) is skitish relative to even moderate B/HB ratios. Both TU and EX Fico 04 are less sensitive. So far my Classic Fico 08 scores from all 3 CRAs have not been influenced by AMEX or anything else for that matter. However, my B/HB has not been over 50% in the last two years. Quite interesting regarding your Fico 04s and AMEX. My AMEX is listed as an "open account" but shows up in the revolver category on reports.

P.S. I have an AMEX green card from 1984 and I don't use it much these days. HB is under $5k. According to an inquiry on the web site my "hidden limit" is something over $30k. I primarily keep the card because it is my oldest and the 1st card I ever had.

Edit add - 3B EQ score graph [Fico 08 constant throughout on all three CRAs]. The big drop captured in early February likely influenced by inquiry and 6 of 6 cards reporting [including AMEX at 49% B/HB]

Disputed PenFed hard inquiry re-classified as SP late February (after 2/14 3B report and before 3/25 report). November 2015 EQ score (3B report actually pulled 12/2/15) not impacted by 11/20/15 temporary PenFed HP. This HP clearly included a 30 day buffer treatment for scoring.

Re: 35 Point Drop from Amex "Revolver" - aka NPSL!

cashnocredit — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 21:39:32 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@cashnocredit wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@RM21 wrote:
Ymmv in how quickly all of the points come back, but in theory eventually they should come back. Give or take somw though, depending on any other changes in your file at that time.
I will be allowing my AMEX NPSL charge card to report an all time high balance this month. This will translate to balance/high balance = 100% utilization for the card. I anticipate no change in Classic Fico 08 score, possibly some impact on Bankcard Fico 08. I'll report back with results. I suspect my Fico 04 scores will take a hit but, not sure I'll pay for a 3B to find out.
I have an Amex Plat charge card and have been tracking it for years. Also, Amex is by far my largest spend card and I typically put 2 to 3k a month on it but sometimes much larger amounts.

FICO 8 scores from TU and EX are unaffected regardless of high balance or reported balance. When the current balance and high balance amex reports is as much as 40k EQ, and only EQ, FICO 8 scores take a large hit though not as much as if the card was a revolver and maxed out. They more than recover the next month when normal balances report because the new high balance improves utilization. It appears the EQ's FICO 8 scores count Amex charge card high balances and balances in overall utilization but not individually. Also, there is an upper end, somewhere between 40k and 50k, that if the high balance exceeds the card will also be ignored for EQ FICO 8. FICO 4s have always ignored my Amex Plat across all CRAs.
Thanks for the info. My experience with my AMEX NPSL charge card is that EQ Fico score 5 (Fico 04 model) is skitish relative to even moderate B/HB ratios. Both TU and EX Fico 04 are less sensitive. So far my Classic Fico 08 scores from all 3 CRAs have not been influenced by AMEX or anything else for that matter. However, my B/HB has not been over 50% in the last two years. Quite interesting regarding your Fico 04s and AMEX. My AMEX is listed as an "open account" but shows up in the revolver category on reports.

P.S. I have an AMEX green card from 1984 and I don't use it much these days. HB is under $5k. According to an inquiry on the web site my "hidden limit" is something over $30k. I primarily keep the card because it is my oldest and the 1st card I ever had.

When Amex reports it creates a "trigger event" on EQ and sometimes on other CRAs. This generates a new score so one can sometimes see a slight change due to age or even or rare occasions rebucketing from age. For EX and TU different things can generate scores such as a total balance change across all cards greater than some percentage depending on which CRA. I've been tracking these on 3B a subscription since before the changeover from FICO 4 to FICO 8 as the default tracker model. Since my Amex spend sometimes is far greater than my total on all other cards the specific impact of an Amex charge card stands out rather strongly.

It would be nice if the EQ 08 model used the higher internal score rather than the high balance as a CL proxy but there is no way for them to report that to the CRAs and still have it be "internal."

My Amex also shows up under the revolver category but these are created by MyFico, not the CRAs or FICO scores. However, if you look at the "terms" category Amex will be listed as "1 month" while regular CCs are listed as revolving.

Since you are about to show significant activity on your Amex it will be quite interesting if you would post the changes you see as well as the H/B and total CLs on your other cards. You should see your EQ FICO 8 score drop between 15 and 40 points then come back up again after you pay the balance and it reports. Also, if your new H/B is materially higher than the old and isgnificantly changes your CL total plus H/B youre score could go up slightly due to a biut lower utilization.