Do Amazon and Walmart Report Monthly if balance $0?

[Anonymous]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to know if walmart and amazon (synchrony) report monthly even with no use on the card? i didn't use them at all last month, so I didn't get the statement cut that I usually do and they haven't reported yet. Just wondering if this is normal and if I can expect them to report monday or tuesday? (they usually report on the 7th or 8th).

Thanks

[Loquat]

In my experience, they've reported even if I had a zero balance. 

[Anonymous]

Many banks will not report the account status to the bureaus if the statement balance is $0 for two or three months consecutively because it costs the creditor money to publish an update to credit reports. Other creditors, for the most part, know and proceed with the understanding that if the last two or three reports showed a $0 balance for an account, and there is no new data, that there has not been a status or balance change.

[Anonymous]

+1 in this discussion I see both sides for someone with a long thick credit file it's not a big deal whereas people with just a year or less behind them they want every month regardless to update. Looking back a few mysynchrony account did skip a couple of times. The month that you paid it off will report which is key for example comenity will not.. that kind of sucks because you like to see that mile marker of pif.

[Anonymous]

Ok thanks for the info guys. Reason I was asking is because I got CLI on both accounts $500->$3500 (wlmt) and $1200->$3500(amz) and I wanted them to report the increase before I have a small app spree. I'll keep looking til Tuesday, then if need be I'll buy something small and move back my app spree to next month :/

[bk510]

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@Loquat wrote:

In my experience, they've reported even if I had a zero balance. 

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My Wallly does not report with 0 balance, however amazon does.

[Revelate]

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@bk510 wrote:

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@Loquat wrote:

In my experience, they've reported even if I had a zero balance. 

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My Wallly does not report with 0 balance, however amazon does.

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Yeah, Wally known does not: mine didn't in the years that I had it either, common complaint.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Many banks will not report the account status to the bureaus if the statement balance is $0 for two or three months consecutively because it costs the creditor money to publish an update to credit reports. Other creditors, for the most part, know and proceed with the understanding that if the last two or three reports showed a $0 balance for an account, and there is no new data, that there has not been a status or balance change.

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Actually it costs near zero to put an update on a credit report for a lender in my experience, other than initial account setup in some cases / some products.  Some small amount of compute and transmission fees, and with the cost of infrastrcture and the size of the transaction it's trivial to virtually any lender including incredibly small ones.

Bureaus make money on retreival of information, but entities which give them information simply makes their information better and therefore worth more.

Also except for contracts between bureau and lender, there's nothing which mandates reports... and as such if it was a major cost factor the lenders simply wouldn't.  I haven't seen the contracts directly at the lenders I've worked for, but presumably there is a discount on obtaining information if they agree to report which is not mandated by law.

Generating a statement OTOH, and providing it to a consumer, that does cost money.  As a result Wally in this case simply doesn't generate a statement, and if a statement isn't generated, the update to the bureau never happens in their application infrastructure.

[RobertEG]

The statutory requirement applies only to sending billing statements to the consumer if the account has a balance (FCBA).

The FCBA requires a minimum of quarterly billing statements on revolving accounts with a balance.

There is no equivalent requriment relating to credit reporting.  The only statutory requirment governing reporting is FCRA 623(a)(2), which mandates that if the balance has changed from prior reporting, the creditor is required to promptly update their reporting so as to maintain its current accuracy.  If the balance remains $0 from month to month, no reporting to the CRAs is required.

Major creditors will usually close accounts that remain unused for x- number of months.

Once closed, billing requirments can then also cease.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your insight

Update: Both Amazon and Walmart reported to all 3 credit bureaus. For reference, I've had a $0 balance with both companies for at least the past 2 months and both have still reported the balance monthly. Neither of them sent me a monthly statement this month.