Dormant Accounts (Credit Cards)

[HowDoesThisAllWork]

Good afternoon, fellow myFico'ers!

Simple question, but a little bit of background.

So, if not interested in the background, please skip to the question!

So, I have been actively involved with this amazing forum for awhile now.  Have learned a lot.  Have been corrected a lot (which is a REALLY good thing).  Hopefully, have helped a little bit.

I have five credit cards and have followed AZEO religiously for a good bit now.  My Discover IT has been the one CC that I have intentionally and specifically allowed to report a balance (on the Statement Closing Date).  I have always paid that "reported balance" in full (on or before the Due Date) so I have never paid one red cent of interest.

Until recently.

In the last month of so I have specifically and intentionally allowed each of the five credit cards to report a balance.

QUESTION: I have received multiple notifications (all from Experian) about "Dormant Account activated".  So, to be clear, on the four other cards (that have essentially reported $0 balances on the "Statement Closing Date") I received a notification from Experian (and, maybe oddly, only Experian) that a Dormant Account has been activated.  What is this?

So, for us AZEO'ers - is this something that we need to "worry" about?

Thanks!

[Jnbmom]

Pretty simple some of your accounts have reported a balance when in the past the didn't.

[Gunnerboy]

Do those inactive cards have annual fees?

[Remedios]

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@HowDoesThisAllWork wrote:

Good afternoon, fellow myFico'ers!

Simple question, but a little bit of background.

So, if not interested in the background, please skip to the question!

So, I have been actively involved with this amazing forum for awhile now.  Have learned a lot.  Have been corrected a lot (which is a REALLY good thing).  Hopefully, have helped a little bit.

I have five credit cards and have followed AZEO religiously for a good bit now.  My Discover IT has been the one CC that I have intentionally and specifically allowed to report a balance (on the Statement Closing Date).  I have always paid that "reported balance" in full (on or before the Due Date) so I have never paid one red cent of interest.

Until recently.

In the last month of so I have specifically and intentionally allowed each of the five credit cards to report a balance.

QUESTION: I have received multiple notifications (all from Experian) about "Dormant Account activated".  So, to be clear, on the four other cards (that have essentially reported $0 balances on the "Statement Closing Date") I received a notification from Experian (and, maybe oddly, only Experian) that a Dormant Account has been activated.  What is this?

So, for us AZEO'ers - is this something that we need to "worry" about?

Thanks!

---

That's just a fraud warning shot in case it wasn't you.

Most consumers dont have cards that report for years, so sudden activity is an alert, not a scoring characteristic. 

[dmFICO8]

It is just a reminder from the service, I had those reminders from Credit Karma in the past.

It happened when both your account balance has not changed and you have not made any payment to the account in last 6 months. All FIs report last payment date except Amex.

[NoHardLimits]

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@Remedios wrote:

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@HowDoesThisAllWork wrote:

Good afternoon, fellow myFico'ers!

Simple question, but a little bit of background.

So, if not interested in the background, please skip to the question!

So, I have been actively involved with this amazing forum for awhile now.  Have learned a lot.  Have been corrected a lot (which is a REALLY good thing).  Hopefully, have helped a little bit.

I have five credit cards and have followed AZEO religiously for a good bit now.  My Discover IT has been the one CC that I have intentionally and specifically allowed to report a balance (on the Statement Closing Date).  I have always paid that "reported balance" in full (on or before the Due Date) so I have never paid one red cent of interest.

Until recently.

In the last month of so I have specifically and intentionally allowed each of the five credit cards to report a balance.

QUESTION: I have received multiple notifications (all from Experian) about "Dormant Account activated".  So, to be clear, on the four other cards (that have essentially reported $0 balances on the "Statement Closing Date") I received a notification from Experian (and, maybe oddly, only Experian) that a Dormant Account has been activated.  What is this?

So, for us AZEO'ers - is this something that we need to "worry" about?

Thanks!

---

That's just a fraud warning shot in case it wasn't you.

Most consumers dont have cards that report for years, so sudden activity is an alert, not a scoring characteristic. 

---

Yes, the credit monitoring services will issue this type of alert when a card is used but does not cut with a statement balance for a while.  I have seen this with Experian many times.  However, there does seem to be a real FICO scoring factor if too many of your accounts don't report a balance for around a year or so.  I'm not sure what the threshold is but Experian FICO will eventually generate a remark that says "too few accounts currently paid as agreed".  The remark will go away once some of those accounts report a balance.

[HowDoesThisAllWork]

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@Gunnerboy wrote:

Do those inactive cards have annual fees?

---

No, sir!  Not a one!

[HowDoesThisAllWork]

---

@HowDoesThisAllWork wrote:

Good afternoon, fellow myFico'ers!

Simple question, but a little bit of background.

So, if not interested in the background, please skip to the question!

So, I have been actively involved with this amazing forum for awhile now.  Have learned a lot.  Have been corrected a lot (which is a REALLY good thing).  Hopefully, have helped a little bit.

I have five credit cards and have followed AZEO religiously for a good bit now.  My Discover IT has been the one CC that I have intentionally and specifically allowed to report a balance (on the Statement Closing Date).  I have always paid that "reported balance" in full (on or before the Due Date) so I have never paid one red cent of interest.

Until recently.

In the last month of so I have specifically and intentionally allowed each of the five credit cards to report a balance.

QUESTION: I have received multiple notifications (all from Experian) about "Dormant Account activated".  So, to be clear, on the four other cards (that have essentially reported $0 balances on the "Statement Closing Date") I received a notification from Experian (and, maybe oddly, only Experian) that a Dormant Account has been activated.  What is this?

So, for us AZEO'ers - is this something that we need to "worry" about?

Thanks!

---

Please allow me to update this as I left something off....seemingly.

I put a fair to a good amount of spend on each of these cards.    I just ensure that a few days prior to the Statement Closing Date that I have (a) stopped using that specific card and (b) made a payment.  For (b), I pay off the total amount due on each of the CCs except the Discover IT Card.  That is the ONE card that I allow a balance to be reported.  And, typically, I will make two payments in each billing cycle.  Sometimes three.

So, there is indeed activity.  For my two main cards, at least 25 different "transactions" each billing cycle.  For the other three, typically somewhere between five and 10.

[Remedios]

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@HowDoesThisAllWork wrote:

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@HowDoesThisAllWork wrote:

Good afternoon, fellow myFico'ers!

Simple question, but a little bit of background.

So, if not interested in the background, please skip to the question!

So, I have been actively involved with this amazing forum for awhile now.  Have learned a lot.  Have been corrected a lot (which is a REALLY good thing).  Hopefully, have helped a little bit.

I have five credit cards and have followed AZEO religiously for a good bit now.  My Discover IT has been the one CC that I have intentionally and specifically allowed to report a balance (on the Statement Closing Date).  I have always paid that "reported balance" in full (on or before the Due Date) so I have never paid one red cent of interest.

Until recently.

In the last month of so I have specifically and intentionally allowed each of the five credit cards to report a balance.

QUESTION: I have received multiple notifications (all from Experian) about "Dormant Account activated".  So, to be clear, on the four other cards (that have essentially reported $0 balances on the "Statement Closing Date") I received a notification from Experian (and, maybe oddly, only Experian) that a Dormant Account has been activated.  What is this?

So, for us AZEO'ers - is this something that we need to "worry" about?

Thanks!

---

Please allow me to update this as I left something off....seemingly.

I put a fair to a good amount of spend on each of these cards.    I just ensure that a few days prior to the Statement Closing Date that I have (a) stopped using that specific card and (b) made a payment.  For (b), I pay off the total amount due on each of the CCs except the Discover IT Card.  That is the ONE card that I allow a balance to be reported.  And, typically, I will make two payments in each billing cycle.  Sometimes three.

So, there is indeed activity.  For my two main cards, at least 25 different "transactions" each billing cycle.  For the other three, typically somewhere between five and 10.

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The activity you're describing is between you and the issuer. CMS only looks at reported balance to determine activity. 

If you pay off card before it reports $0.00, it's not considered "active" 

That alert is simply referencing time since card reported balance last time. 

[HeavenOhio]

"Too few accounts currently paid as agreed" means not having enough accounts with a clean payment record. A similar reason is too few accounts in good standing. If you're getting one of these reasons and you have a perfect payment record, it would make sense to assume that FICO sees your file as thin.