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If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?

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ArchEagleJ
Established Member

If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?

Well I'm in a little bit of a bad situation.  I have been working for the past couple of years to rebuild my credit.  I have one derog on my CR from about 2 years ago, but it is now paid.  I had started with Orchard bank card and a First Premier, I have now in the past 4 months added about 8 other cards ( I know that is way too many and I have now stopped apping for at least a year) they all have better limits and no AF.  My Eq Fico is sitting right around 650 right now, tons of inquiries and like I said a lot of new accounts also.   

 

Now my situation is that my brother has gotten himself into some financial trouble.  He is having a hard time paying his rent, so I am going to have to help him.  My name is on the lease so if he defaults on it then it goes against me as well.  I don't have the money laying around to pay for this so I was planning on using one of my newer Cards.   I have a Citi Card with a $4,000 CL.  Right now there is a balance on it of around 1700 just because I am taking advantage of my promo APR, and was planning on paying it all off next month when that promo ran out.  Now if I do this, it will put my card just 100 or 200 under the limit.  I will be making far more than the minimum payments each month for sure, and will probably still pay off around 1500 of it next month but will have to carry the rest of the balance for a while as my brother pays me back and we pay it down.   My question is how bad do yall think it would hurt my score to do that?  My total credit is around 13,400 between all of my cards.  I know that this would kill my Util a little, but how much of an impact would it make on my score?   Also I am concerned about the possibility of Citi lowering my limit, it is a new card only 4 months old and I dont know how they'd react to it being charged up so close to the limit so soon.  

 

Any thoughts? 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7/25/09 -- EQ 651 ; TU 634 ; EX: ??


2/22/10 -- EQ 652; TU 657; Ex: ??
Shootin' for 700!!!
Message 1 of 5
4 REPLIES 4
creditwherecreditisdue
Senior Contributor

Re: If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?

What is your % UTIL (overall) now and what would it be if you did this?

 

I really do not like this plan. Does the landlord accept a CC for his rent payment? If not, how are you going to get the money out of the card?  Cash advances are red flags for AA. They may not fall under your promo rate and may effectively negate it's value. High UTIL on any one account may also trigger AA from another of your issuers. Were I you I would be trying to find some other way to solve this issue and fast!

Message 2 of 5
ArchEagleJ
Established Member

Re: If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?


@creditwherecreditisdue wrote:

What is your % UTIL (overall) now and what would it be if you did this?

 

I really do not like this plan. Does the landlord accept a CC for his rent payment? If not, how are you going to get the money out of the card?  Cash advances are red flags for AA. They may not fall under your promo rate and may effectively negate it's value. High UTIL on any one account may also trigger AA from another of your issuers. Were I you I would be trying to find some other way to solve this issue and fast!

 
 

My Util right now is around 16%, if I did this it would jump to around 32% or 33%.   I don't like this plan at all either trust me.  I feel stupid for ever signing on the lease for him but now I am kinda stuck with it.   I would only do it if they accept credit card payments, I definitely would not do a cash advance, I don't want to deal with those interest rates and I figured that would cause some concern with the CC company.  

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7/25/09 -- EQ 651 ; TU 634 ; EX: ??


2/22/10 -- EQ 652; TU 657; Ex: ??
Shootin' for 700!!!
Message 3 of 5
creditwherecreditisdue
Senior Contributor

Re: If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?

If you were at 8% and going to 20% I might relent. But this is taking you pretty close to a UTIL threshold you don't want to be at. I will tell you that I let my overall UTIL go from 9% to about 12% and allowed one more card to report a balance and it cost me 23 FICO points. I could afford the UTIL and the point hit. You really can't.
Message 4 of 5
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: If I help, how bad will it hurt my score?

what if u pay his rent this Month and he can't pay next Month? You're gonna be in the same situation. He's your brother and u want to help him so if you're gonna do it I would rather go to a CU and get a small loan instead of putting it on a CC. That way when he gets back on his feet he can give u the money to pay towards the loan.
Message 5 of 5
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