@Superduper2014 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:A number of people are letting you know that your scores from Credit Karma have no practical value. But it sounds like you still are planning to use Karma as the place you use to get scores.... is that right?
Is the reason for this that you don't understand how to get FICO scores for free or for almost no cost? If that's the problem, let us know and the folks here will walk you through that.
Thanks for reminding me of this. I have overlooked that crucial part and was incorreclty asuming credit karma scores would go up and down in parallel to real ficos, so if karma went down then more likely real fico would too.
I apologize and would like to share what I learned.
I have had a Discover card for a while and also a subscription to experian score tracker that I forgot all about.
So I was able to go back and look at my Fico 8 scores for the past few months using Discover free scores and experian's website.
To my surprise, they have not changed even though they show the "offending" card at 64%
So Experian Fico 8 is 722 and Trans 8 is 714.
They were the same scores for the past 3 months, so they did not care even with that card at such high balance.
I am curious to know why despite going above the recommended credit utilization, there was no impact on my Fico 8 scores?
Is Fico 8 the fico that is currently being used by lenders when you apply for credit cards?
Finally, if it makes no difference in my case whether I have a 64% utilization or lower (since when it util was lower my scores were the same), then it makes no difference if I bring that card down to 28% as I calculated yesterday?
I think that what prevents my scores from going up is an old charged off account that was paid and settled and is due to be removed this year. This account DOFD is almost at 7yrs and last pymt was 2015. I tried to get early removal, but all 3 didn't want to, despite being a month away from Transunion scheduled removal for example, and they suggested I dispute the account. So when that happnes, maybe it will what will bring my scores up for real.
I appreciate everyones' patience with me and great comments!
You are being penalized in FICO 8 whenever you have an individual revolving account at 30% or more. If you get your highest utilized account down to 28% you'll realize a boost in your scores.
My overall utilization went from 15% to 18% and it dropped my score 8 points 
. I had to make some larger purchases than normal, but I plan on paying these cards all off in the next couple of months. Can't wait to see what my score will be then!
@Superduper2014 wrote:UPDATE:
This is crazy good.
I called every bureau to get an early removal of an old collection due to fall this year after 7yrs.
I checked today on the disputes they started and only Transunion deleted the account so far, so I went ahead and bought the $1 experian scores for all three to see what Fico Transunion shows now.
Just by deleting the old charged off account my FICO with transunion went up 49 points!!!!
Trans was 714 and today is 763
Mind you nothing else has changed and I still have the one credit card at 63% util. This card reports in a couple of days.
My conclusion here is that for some reason and despite the rules known here, in my case having a util above 30% on one card did not penalize my fico score as it was the same before 30% util and at 64% util. Only my vantage 3.0 scores given by credit karma showed a drop in scores when it reached 64%. Also, what was holding back my Fico was the charged off account showing late payments.
What do you all make of this?
Usually having the last collection fall off results in the biggest score bump. So CONGRATS!!! That's seriously amazing! Now just keep up the great work and you'll be on your way to the 800's in no time. 
@Anonymous wrote:
@Queen_Etherea wrote:My overall utilization went from 15% to 18% and it dropped my score 8 points
Are you sure that was the cause of the score drop? Nothing else changed? What about number of accounts with a balance and potential individual utilization crossings? An aggregate move from 15% to 18% in and of itself shouldn't cause a FICO score drop at all.
Now that I think about it, I think a small charge posted on both my Capital One and PayPal cards. Those have both been at $0 for quite some time and I forgot to pay them off before the reporting date. It's no big deal as I'm not apping for anything anytime soon. I already got those 8 points back and more!
@Anonymous wrote:
@Queen_Etherea wrote:Now that I think about it, I think a small charge posted on both my Capital One and PayPal cards. Those have both been at $0 for quite some time and I forgot to pay them off before the reporting date. It's no big deal as I'm not apping for anything anytime soon. I already got those 8 points back and more!
Good catch. It sounds like you have 2 more accounts with balances now compared to before. What was your total number of accounts with balances before compared to now? If you turn that into percentages, what is the before/after percentages? For example, if you went from 3/7 accounts to 5/7 accounts, you moved from 43% of accounts with a balance to 72% of accounts with a balance, which would have definitely crossed a threshold at 50% (for example).
Literally all my cards are reporting a balance so 100%. Actually, no, my AMEX BCE isn't reporting anything, but the other 10 are. Holy crap... I can't believe I have 11 cards. I think I went a little overboard during my rebuild LOL. I really want to close my Capital One because it's for sure bucketed and not going to go anywhere. It's only $500, so it wouldn't really hurt me, but then why close it if I'm not paying an AF?