Comenity using BS internal credit score and tanking my limits

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

as far as i can tell the average age of accounts (coming up on 8 years) and that i dont have any mortage, or loans other than my car; i live in my families home on our horse farm and rent the in-law apartment here.

my total util is about 78% but when this started was 70% and was going down, i had had to use a good portion of my navy federal credit card for roof repairs when a bad storm tore shingles up in a small section and soaked the baseboard so they had to be replaced so that drove it up.

the comenity cards are largely unused; i had about $2000 in credit with them out of which i had used about $600, the cards i have are HSN, gamestop, and Kingsize, limits were $1000, $500, and $500 respectively, hsn is still at $1000 and has no running balance. gamestop has about a $70 balance but was $130 and change at the time of the first notice and the kingsize has about $378 for a balance but was at $468 at the time of the notice

in total between all my lines of credit as far as revolving accounts i have a limit of $9900 of which i have used about $7600 currently, when this started i had used about $6800 or so maybe a little less.

i always make my payments and usually pay a bit more than the minimum, maybe not multiples more but $15-30 more than the minimum depending on whats going on.

the comenity cards are also some of my oldest cards from going on 6 years ago now, i had not been able to get any lines of credit really until i was about 24 just due to the fact that i had no history so even though i had a job and minimal housing bills due to living with family in an apartment i couldn't get any approvals until about 2011 with paypal credit and later a comenity card for hsn

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Your aggregate utilization is the problem.  78% aggregate utilization is perilously close to maxing out your credit limits and would cause any creditor to examine your accounts closely in order to limit their potential losses.  Creditors consider 88.9% utilization as maxed out; ideally you want your aggregate utilization to be at 8.9% or below and any of your individual credit cards to be at 28.9% or below.  Anything above those thresholds will negatively affect your credit scores.

Even if you don't carry large balances on your Comenity cards they will soft-pull your credit reports and will be able to see the balances with other lenders.  Comenity cutting your limits is a warning; you'd be fortunate if other creditors don't do the same.

[Anonymous]

i'm aware thats it's their money but why i say its BS is that it doesnt seem to follow any other scoring methodology that i can find my score in; as i've said all my scores have NEVER been below 600 at any point in my life.

how they get a 570 score when my lowest is 619 and my highest is 636 doesnt make sense.

even going to fico 8 my scores are still 616 or higher.

and if there is something else on my report then i cant find it; on the reports i have there is no delinquency and the only derogitory marks are those two missed payments.

the only other thing is the hard pulls from the car dealer which added 9 inquiries and put the total up to 12 and the util now being above the 75% mark from the roof repair.

[Anonymous]

i understand that; but they are the only ones who are doing this and that jump in util was after they started hitting my limits; before that it was at 70% and falling, my next set of payments between all my credit lines would have brought it down to about 67% if not more.

[Anonymous]

Did you at least get that Subaru?

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

You have to realize that most of the lenders are working with reports that are 1-2 months behind current. While you may be paying everything down, the report they have might be from when the balances were higher. Also, all lenders have their own internal scoring. It's why someone like me was able to get a PayPal card, for more than the normal starting limit, with a sub 600 score. While my FICO score wasn't in the normal range of approvals, their internal score has me in a better place than most.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Also, the Subaru loan isn't dinging your score that bad. If they're grouped together within 2 weeks, you only took 1 hit, probably for around 5 points. The number of inquiries, however, could have brought you on their radar. If the computer that combs through their accounts isn't programmed to filter out possible auto loan inquiries, it's only going to see the number of inquiries and it could have flagged you for credit seeking.

[CreditInspired]

OP
I think once your anger at Comenity subsides, you’ll realize what everyone else is saying is true, informative, and helpful. Understanding this going forward will help you build and maintain a strong credit profile.

[Anonymous]

ok this whole mess started last year when i had that 70% utilization and it was going down; thats the point i have been trying to make, i got hit with the loan inquiries (i did get the car loan btw ended up navy federal gave the best rate) back in january these reductions then happened almost 6 months later then nothing happened until the roof thing which was maybe barely a month and a half ago. so these reductions are ocurring outside of any of the nearest (time wise) changes by more than 5 months on either end.

anything else they were already aware of for years before some of the accounts i have with them even being opened yet.

if i have such an increased risk then why would navy federal give me a line of up to 38K for a new car on top what i already have a single credit card with them for a $4600 limit and an additonal $1000 checking line of credit?

same deal with my other non-comenity cards; why woudl chase give me a $1000 unsecured card, a quicksilver card from capitol one for $500, or a paypal credit line for almost $850.

why would all these larger, supposedly stricter companies agree to extend these lines of credit and maintain and in some cases increase the limits when i'm supposedly a higher risk; if i missed or lagged on the payments for multiple accounts i could understand it but i've missed litterally 2 payments in almost 8 years so i've made 98% or better of all the payments in my entire credit life.

by any other means than utilization i have a pretty dam good credit record.

and the only reason i'm mad at comenity is that they do this with no apparent logical reason, as i've said when they did this it was 5 months on either side of any changes, even their customer support said they dont understand why they reduced them as they've seen account in much worse shape keep their limits and accounts.

i honestly think whatever system or process they use had a glitch or hickup such as was suggested with the auto loan inquiries in that it is a programming error or oversight. and what gets me the most is the department or group or whatever is responsible for reviewing this just tells me what in effect is "tough **bleep** F-off" in complete disregard to the facts and my own history with my accounts

[Pikaboo-icu]

You need to remember it isn't personal.. It isn't..

It's also not decided by a human being as a rule, it's a computer algorithm.

The auto loan is secured debt, totally different from an unsecured loan which is what a CC is.

NFCU is NFCU- they are unlike any other! Getting a good SL from them is great but it's well known they will risk where others wont dare to tread.

Sadly, Comenity and Synchrony (to a lesser extent) are well documented around these forums for taking AA.

People have app'd for new cards and had them all closed before they even received them.

Their actions aren't a judgement against you- it's just the algorithm detected similar issues in your credit, that have resulted in loss to them before.

It will be ok.. 

You already have some prime cards and can replace the Comenity cards with something better after your uti is lowered.

There are a lot of other people that have been hit with this same thing.

Hang in there.. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

ok this whole mess started last year when i had that 70% utilization and it was going down; thats the point i have been trying to make, i got hit with the loan inquiries (i did get the car loan btw ended up navy federal gave the best rate) back in january these reductions then happened almost 6 months later then nothing happened until the roof thing which was maybe barely a month and a half ago. so these reductions are ocurring outside of any of the nearest (time wise) changes by more than 5 months on either end.

anything else they were already aware of for years before some of the accounts i have with them even being opened yet.

if i have such an increased risk then why would navy federal give me a line of up to 38K for a new car on top what i already have a single credit card with them for a $4600 limit and an additonal $1000 checking line of credit?

same deal with my other non-comenity cards; why woudl chase give me a $1000 unsecured card, a quicksilver card from capitol one for $500, or a paypal credit line for almost $850.

why would all these larger, supposedly stricter companies agree to extend these lines of credit and maintain and in some cases increase the limits when i'm supposedly a higher risk; if i missed or lagged on the payments for multiple accounts i could understand it but i've missed litterally 2 payments in almost 8 years so i've made 98% or better of all the payments in my entire credit life.

by any other means than utilization i have a pretty dam good credit record.

and the only reason i'm mad at comenity is that they do this with no apparent logical reason, as i've said when they did this it was 5 months on either side of any changes, even their customer support said they dont understand why they reduced them as they've seen account in much worse shape keep their limits and accounts.

i honestly think whatever system or process they use had a glitch or hickup such as was suggested with the auto loan inquiries in that it is a programming error or oversight. and what gets me the most is the department or group or whatever is responsible for reviewing this just tells me what in effect is "tough **bleep** F-off" in complete disregard to the facts and my own history with my accounts

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OP, where are you getting your credit scores from?

Also, it appears that you are ignoring your DTI ratio which is a critical measure used by lenders to evaluate your financial health.  What is your current debt to income ratio?

By your own admission your credit card (revolving) utilization was above 70% and you were barely making a little more than the minimum payments monthly.  That alone suggests you were having problems paying your debts. Then to compound the problem, you went out and got a $38K car loan, which appears to be more than your annual income.  A car loan (any loan for that matter) reporting to the credit bureaus with 100% of the balance unpaid can easily cost you 20-30 points on your credit scores.

So in addition to the points deducted for the hard inquiries associated with the car loan, you also have a new installment loan reporting on your credit report and I'm guessing it is at or near 100% which will cost you points.  You generally wouldn't see any gain from a loan until the outstanding balance is below 88.9% and you get the most points when your loan balance is below 8.9% but not fully paid off.

The fact that life events like the need to repair your roof happened, is of no concern to Comenity...they just want the money they lent you back and you're clearly demonstrating that you've made sub-optimal financial choices.