topic Re: Question about usage in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Question about usage

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 01:02:09 GMT

i have two capital one credit cards with a 750 limit each. They have been maxed out for a while. I decided to get my credit back on track and pay them off this month. I also have a another cc with a 1500 limit and 1000 usage and a care credit of 1000 with a 350 usage.

I have also added two new cc with 1000 limit each and 0 usage.

Lastly, i have two collections that the CA seatled and sent delete request to all cb.

Once the collections gets deleted and paying off my CApital one credit cards that were maxed out and adding two new accounts give me a sustancial score increase or will it affect me even more?

Re: Question about usage

NRB525 — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 15:34:31 GMT

Welcome to the forums.

What are your MyFICO scores?

Paying down the Capital One accounts is a good idea, but not so they report zero on the statement. You want something on those accounts so you are showing some balances.

And, if it were me, I'd not worry about maxing out both Capital One accounts because the limits are so low, as long as you are paying in full after the statement prints. This high utilization of low limit cards is a strategy for longer term growth in your available credit, as long as those amounts are PIF each month after the statement. It may take a few minor points off your score, but you are in a phase where you want to show responsible usage of your cards to get higher limits later.

Re: Question about usage

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 21:13:24 GMT

@NRB525 wrote:
Welcome to the forums.
What are your MyFICO scores?

Paying down the Capital One accounts is a good idea, but not so they report zero on the statement. You want something on those accounts so you are showing some balances.

And, if it were me, I'd not worry about maxing out both Capital One accounts because the limits are so low, as long as you are paying in full after the statement prints. This high utilization of low limit cards is a strategy for longer term growth in your available credit, as long as those amounts are PIF each month after the statement. It may take a few minor points off your score, but you are in a phase where you want to show responsible usage of your cards to get higher limits later.

Paying before or paying after the statement cuts really makes no difference to the CC issuer - they just want to see high usage, large payments and little carried balance - meaning carried for more than 30 days.