topic Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score? in General Credit Topics

Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:41:13 GMT

My score dropped 25 yesterday and the only reason I can think of is I keep about $10 balance on every credit cards (total 4 cards). is this normal? should keep 0 balance.

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2008 16:52:18 GMT

You got it mixed up...your probably will get a small decrease for keeping a $0 balance..oppose to a small balance...look at your reports closely...to see if something else has changed...

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

marty56 — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:11:16 GMT

I get dinged if I have more then 1 CC report a balance small or not.

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

fused — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:10:12 GMT

For max revolving util FICO points, have less than 1/2 of your credit cards reporting any balance. The ones that do report a balance should be < 9% of their CL.

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:55:19 GMT

marty56 wrote:
I get dinged if I have more then 1 CC report a balance small or not.

me too, on TU. I noticed this month on my report: Too many accounts with balances. I only have 5 cards with very small balances at 7% total util and I got dinged with that!

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

marty56 — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:07:18 GMT

While I am not 100% sure about score buckets I wonder if they play a role in how people's score is affected by the number of accounts that report a balance.

I am either in the major derog (120 day late) score bucket or the old account score bucket.

If this is true, would it also follow that people who are dinged for more then 1 account showing a blance should not get dinged for no accounts showing a balance?

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:11:32 GMT

marty56 wrote:
While I am not 100% sure about score buckets I wonder if they play a role in how people's score is affected by the number of accounts that report a balance.

I am either in the major derog (120 day late) score bucket or the old account score bucket.

If this is true, would it also follow that people who are dinged for more then 1 account showing a blance should not get dinged for no accounts showing a balance?

Marty, I'll answer this question next week. I am getting 7 120's removed by next fri. I'll let you know if and how much score jumps and if I get rebucketed

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

marty56 — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:14:13 GMT

If I may ask which company are they with? Mine is with BofA. Also how old are they? Mine will be 3 years in August.

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Jesedmotherof5 — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:15:20 GMT

I also just paid more then half of my CCs to Zero So Im intrested in see the outcome of the half rule!

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

haulingthescoreup — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:17:41 GMT

I did get a score jump once on TU when I accidentally had all 5 CC's report $0. But others have reported a ding when that happens.

It might well be as marty said, and it varies by score bucket. I have a BT card, so it will be a long while before I can test this!

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:26:05 GMT

But having balances on all of them is not a bad idea during the times that you don't need a high score because it forces all of them to report to the credit agencies. My Amex doesn't report to EQ if there is no activity. My BOA does not report at all if no activity. So using them forces them to update. Just reduce the number of balances before you need a higher score.

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Anonymous — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:09:15 GMT

I just pulled my Truecredit and found out there's nothing changed except that all my credit cards are reporting $10 balance on them. I didn't know they reduce your score because of that...

Re: Carrying low balance on every CC hurts your score?

Junejer — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:13:49 GMT

Too many accounts with balances is a mantra that I usually hear from TU.