High Balances affecting FICO

Anonymous · ‎04-06-2008

Hi. I just pulled my FICO report for Equifax. When they did my "credit at a glance", it said that my total utilization was 41%. I know that I am much higher on certain accounts. However, the message said that doing a balance transfer to a different card would not change my overall utilization and my FICO score. Is this true? I am about 87% on at least one card and over 50% on several others. Is it worth it to do a balance transfer to lower an idividual card's utilization? Please let me know.

MidnightVoice · ‎04-06-2008

FICO looks at both individual cards and overall utilization. It does not like to see any cards approaching maxed out.

Financially, one wants the highest balances on the lowest APR cards.

The slide from grace is really more like gliding
And I've found the trick is not to stop the sliding
But to find a graceful way of staying slid

Anonymous · ‎04-06-2008

to get a score FICO takes a total of your CL and UTIL. Best scores are UTIL under 10% and FICO likes a Bal $0 on some cards.

I have 10 cards I only carry a Bal on 4 of them the other 6 are only used once or twice a year and PIF before it reports. This keeps the cards active & reporting Bal $0

I have apprx 35% UTIL

In the last year I have opened 4 new cards. I have TFd from high int. to the new lower or 0% int

Because I have doubled my CL scores went up....while waiting for TF from 1 CC to the other my scores went down as......CCC report at different times some TF were reported by both CCC.

Because I have no more debt added to any CC since my UTIL is lower then when I started.

FICO like some cards Bal $0 but still counts total CL against UTIL.

Anonymous · ‎04-07-2008

Hi. Just to understand, my total utility is 43%. Even though some cards are at a higher utilitity, the overall utiilty is what counts? I have 0 balances on several cards and would prefer to keep it that way. I just want to make sure that moving stuff around won't help my Fico scores.