How bad does a maxed cc hurt?

[Anonymous]

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credit4me wrote:

I'm still getting confused with all this. I thought the FICO takes the total util. of all CC acounts. So, if you have a total TL of 10,000 and say the CL on 1 card is 400 and bal is 380 but that's your only balance of the entire 10,000. Are you still hurting yourself?

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It considers both total and individual uti.  Individual uti doesn't really hurt you until you go over say 70%  90% will kill you.

[Anonymous]

 I FINALLY figured it out - treat the card like it was cash (imagine dollar or hundred dollar bills floating to the cash register).... don't put anyhting on it (unless a  life or death emergency) that you can't pay for before the next payment date unless it is less than 10% of the CLI total

Gotcha CCCs!!!

[ficonovice]

My credit cards are at 85% util up from around 75% last month and my scores weren't affected negatively. In fact Experian and TU went up 6 and 9 points respectively. EQ stayed the same, but I received an alert that one card went up 35%.

My scores (for me) are as high as they've ever been.

EQ = 693

TU = 664

EX = 669

I really want to apply for and get a decent credit card with at least a cl of a few thousand, but I've been told I'd probably be denied due to high utilization. I thought with these relatively decent scores I'd be approved.

Any thoughts? 

[Anonymous]

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ficonovice wrote:

My credit cards are at 85% util up from around 75% last month and my scores weren't affected negatively. In fact Experian and TU went up 6 and 9 points respectively. EQ stayed the same, but I received an alert that one card went up 35%.

My scores (for me) are as high as they've ever been.

EQ = 693

TU = 664

EX = 669

I really want to apply for and get a decent credit card with at least a cl of a few thousand, but I've been told I'd probably be denied due to high utilization. I thought with these relatively decent scores I'd be approved.

Any thoughts? 

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From 75% to 85% you probably will see no ill effects since the damage was already done.  You would see this if you reduced your utilization to under 50% of the card limits. Go ahead and charge one up to 90-95 and come back and let us know if it hurt.

With your current scores, you could probably be well into the 700s with lower utilization.

Message Edited by Brammy on 09-27-2007 11:41 AM

[ficonovice]

Thanks. I cleaned up a few negative items 2 months ago and my credit looks really clean except for the high utilization. I've started to pay down the debt and plan to pay as much monthly as I can (approx. $1200-1800) which should remove my debt in around 8 months. However I'm getting antsy and want to pay off the cards now and see my scores soar...(hopefully)..

Does it make any sense to apply for a loan/credit line and pay off the cards? Any sense to apply for a card with a good limit and transfer the balances (in theory I think that would at least lower my utilization under 50% with a goal of getting it under 10%). Again though, someone said they thought I'd be denied for a card due to high utilization. Is that really expected?

[jschaffer]

Getting into debt to pay off debt doesn't seem like a winning solution. In fact the new TL could potentially hurt your score.

[ficonovice]

Yes, I think you're right. I guess I was really hoping/expecting that with decent scores I'd just be able to get approval for a good credit card with a credit limit between $3500 and $7000 which would help my overall utilization come down significantly. I just don't want to be turned down!!! so I won't apply if the good folks here think I'd be shot down...

[jsmith12345]

I keep reading conflicting information.  So, individual utilization doesn't really hurt you unless it's over 90%, the CRA's are focused on OVERALL utlization primarily?   Based on my score monitoring this is not the case, could one of the experts clarify? Thanks!

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I once had a barium enema. [It was for medical reasons rather than for fun.] The prep sucked, but the procedure itself was nightmarishly painful. One of the few legally sanctioned forms of torture outside of Gitmo. But, then it ended and next day there were no lasting effects--other than to one's pride.

Think of a maxed CC as a barium enema.

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Eeeewwwwwwww.....

OK, let's think this through. Would that mean that under 10% util is constipation? And 1-4% util is really bad constipation? And PIF'd is a fecal impaction? And, and...

Eeeewwwwwwww.....

[fused]

FICO scoring has two types of util% calculations, one that looks at the extent of utilization on each individual revolving account (i.e. CCs, overdraft protection and sometimes Heloc’s) and the other is cumulative and looks at the extent of utilization on all of your revolving accounts.

Both are important! The trick is to have util on each card below 10% (1-9% for max FICO points), same goes for your cumulative util%.