Bankcards v Retail Cards

[Reighn9]

I subscribe to MyFico 3B monitoring and TU reports on Bankcard and Retail card balances and utization changes. TU never says which account causes the change. I always thought Bankcards were Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, and Discover and Retail cards are Branded Store cards without the Visa or MC added. TU just reported a Bankcard account change of 25 accounts to 24 and a credit line drop of $500 when my Home Depot account was closed. This is a store card, why is it reporting with the Bankcards? Is TU reporting accounts twice, once in each Bankcard and Retail cards? Also I believe Experian reported a closed credit card account as a paid loan. Does this make a difference? These actions are dropping my scores, coupled with some other factors like PIF a low staement balance.

[HeavenOhio]

I think that in TU's terms, all cards are bankcards. Or at least all revolvers.

Here on the forum, we usually refer to Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and AMEX as "major" cards. The cards lacking those logos and can be used with only one merchant, a handful of merchants (e.g. Walmart, Sam's), or a category of merchants (CareCredit) would be referred to as retail or store cards.

[Reighn9]

But TU has a separate category where they also refer to Retail Cards.  I get alerts from TU on Bankcard balances and actions and Retail Card accounts balances and actions separately.  These are different amounts.  TU also reports balance changes and other actions  to my auto loan in a third category.  The name of the company is never mentioned by TU so it is a guessing game or wait until the account alerts on another CRA to know which account is referred to.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you may not be fully happy with the myFICO Ultimate product (which can cost nearly $500/year).  If so, you might want to consider alternatives to it that cost you nothing, or close to nothing.

No solution is perfect, but what certainly sucks is to pay a lot of money and still not get what you want.

[Reighn9]

No, I'm happy with the product and the daily reporting.  The free and less expensive programs are much worse and less accurate.  I'm just trying to figure out if TU is reporting my accounts incorrectly or twice under different categories.  I have trouble getting credit reports from TU for adverse action letters.

[Anonymous]

OK.  Best of luck! 

PS.  The free solutions that I can think of are all accurate, in the sense that when the score or report is pulled, it reflects what the CRA report or particular credit model really was at that moment.  So, for example, creditscore.com really gives you what your FICO 8 Classic score was and what your Experian report was at that moment.

The free tools for obtaining credit reports (as opposed to scores) often enable you to pull fresh copies of your report multiple times a month, whereas myFICO only gives you a new report once a month.  No reason for a person to view this as an either/or -- it's possible to have a few free reporting tools in one's back pocket in addition to the $40/mo myFICO product.