Hi, folks. So here is my dilemma: last week, my FICO score dropped by 5 points. The reasons why it dropped are frustrating. I have a card with a CL of $10K limit on which I used to spend no more than $500 on per month and then immediately pay off. After reading an article which noted that card companies were looking to close accounts of users from which they did not make any money (i.e. Cardholders who used their cards infrequently and paid the entire balance off monthly, like, me), I decided to use the card more often. I started to use it for almost every purchase, while making sure to keep it well under what I thought was the magic 30% threshold. On this card, that would have been 3K and I never went past $2,500. I plan to pay it down to about $500 each month, just to show the company I am an active user. Since I never went past $500, FICO noted the spike and decided to ding me. It seems that FICO and the credit card companies have oxymoronic policies that leave consumers between a rock and a hard place. I built my score up from 630 to 725 this year when I started to mind the store a bit more diligently and incidentally went from a $500 secured card to the $10k unsecured card noted above, so when I see points coming off, especially in this environment, its worrisome. Can anyone help me at least better understand this quandary and or make suggestions for how to proceed? I thought I had a handle on what to do, but now feel like I am shooting at a moving target. Thanks, folks.
