Alert on "revolving credit utilization" question

[Anonymous]

So a couple months ago I stumbled across a joint revolving credit account still open with my ex-wife; she let it go over the limit and dropped both our scores.  Anyways, she had it closed by her credit union and the balance transferred to another account in her name only. That was on the 17th of Sepetember, unfortunately the credit union reported on the 16th.  

Anyways, I've been patiently, actually impatiently waiting for it to hit my credit reports to see what it does to my score; so I get this alert that says "Total revolving credit utilization is at 95%", and lists her(my old) credit union as the source of the change, but I don't really understand because it's alerting me of the balance that was already there, that's reflected in my debt utilization percentage, and the limit is $5K and 95% of it is the balance??  Wierd thing is my credit went up two points.  This is only from Experian so far.

Any thoughts on why I got this alert that's really not reporting anything different really?  When I first saw it I thought, yay, and then kind of confused.  Thanks for any feedback.  And if they "supposedly" reported on the 17th, how long should they take to report, I called and they said the 16th is when they report, I've got accounts that closed on the 23rd and have reported already, frustrating...

[Anonymous]

Just for clarity, i think the concern you are reporting has to do with the utilization on a particular card.  Your ex allowed it to get very high -- but she didn't miss a payment or make one late or anything like that -- right?

If so, I'd just ignore it.  It might affect your credit score for a month, but soon after that the card will be reporting as closed on your report (with a zero balance) and a completely positive history (if I understood you right). 

The thing for you to be looking at is the report, not the score.  Credit Karma will let you pull a free Equifax and TransUnion report.  If they both give you the good news (as above) then you should be fine.  You can pull them as often as once a week. 

The greater teachable moment for you is that there was a credit card appearing on your credit reports, possibly for quite a long time, a card that was not being used by you and was being used by another person, but you only found out about it recently.  That should be of concern to you -- and you should be thinking about how you can find out sooner about that in the future.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply; the unfortunate thing was I didn't find out about it until I applied for a mortgage, my fault I know for not checking my credit long ago when we got divorced, the issue was she had something, like Amazon Prime, or something, on auto pay and ran the limit over the $5K balance right before the reporting date so it dented her credit and knocked mine below the mendoza line for mortgages, the mortgage lender mentioned it to me as the biggest hit on my score at the moment, when I found out about the card,  so I had my ex close it right away, last month.  

My landlord is giving me until the end of the year for my credit to rebound to qualify to buy the house so that's why I've been very anxious to see what happens when this one drops off, if it boosts my score failry nicely or not.  Luckily, knock on wood, so far I've knocked all my other credit card balances down into the %20-30 utilization range and already made some good progress on my numbers, if this credit line drops off I'll be in the 12% range so very anxious to say the least.  I was just worried and dissapointed that it reported but still with a balance, not sure why my score went up 2 points, but guess better than nothing.  Thanks again.

[Anonymous]

Do you have a utility that will allow you to pull your reports (as opposed to scores) once a week?  Karma sounds like it would be a good choice for you.  It's free and gives you two of the three bureaus.

Once Karma gives you the good news, you can get the Experian report a different way -- I can think of a few ways that are very cheap. 

If the CU claims they reported to the three bureaus on Oct 17th, there is no reason why if you pulled tomorrow that you shouldn't see the closed account in there.  Let me know what happens. 

Sorry to hear about your trouble!

[Anonymous]

As difficult as your situation is, I admire your use of the phrase Mendoza Line, as in your ex-wife's mismanagement of the card knocked you below the Mendoza Line for Mortgages.  I had to look it up on Wikipedia, and the result will keep me cheerful for the rest of the week:

"The Mendoza Line is an expression in baseball in the United States, deriving from the name of shortstop Mario Mendoza, whose mediocre batting average is taken to define the threshold of incompetent hitting."

[takeshi74]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Anyways, I've been patiently, actually impatiently waiting for it to hit my credit reports to see what it does to my score; so I get this alert that says "Total revolving credit utilization is at 95%", and lists her(my old) credit union as the source of the change, but I don't really understand because it's alerting me of the balance that was already there, that's reflected in my debt utilization percentage, and the limit is $5K and 95% of it is the balance??  Wierd thing is my credit went up two points.

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Nothing weird about it. From what you're saying the reported utilization didn't change.  Therefore the score change is due to something else.  Utilization on that one card isn't the only thing that impact your scores.  You'd have to carefully review reports from before and after the change to determine the cause but I don't recommend worring over a small change like 2 points and suggest a threshold of at least 20 points.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the reply; the unfortunate thing was I didn't find out about it until I applied for a mortgage, my fault I know for not checking my credit long ago when we got divorced

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Definitely make sure you're routinely checking your reports.  At the very least make use of the Annual Credit Report site.