High balances question on TU CRs - dispute it?

[IcyCool7227]

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Greater-quot-High-Balance-quot-see-in-Tr...

That thread is too old to post to so I just have a question to start here. TransUnion CS sent me a free copy of my most recent credit report today. Some of the old high balances are inaccurate. For example I never had a high balance of $913 on my Mercury Rewards Visa account in the months of 9-24 to 12-24 or a high balance of $470 from 7/2022 to 12/2024 on Kohls Charge. The current balances showing on the report are all accurate however. Should I bother to dispute this? I only care about it if it affects appyling with new lenders soon like I'm going to do with Citi and Amex. Do they look at the high balance section on the report and make it a reason to deny with revolving accounts having too many high balances? When the current reports all come out I will be at a total of 0.46% util which is fantastic.

[GZG]

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@IcyCool7227 wrote:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Greater-quot-High-Balance-quot-see-in-Tr...

That thread is too old to post to so I just have a question to start here. TransUnion CS sent me a free copy of my most recent credit report today. Some of the old high balances are inaccurate. For example I never had a high balance of $913 on my Mercury Rewards Visa account in the months of 9-24 to 12-24 or a high balance of $470 from 7/2022 to 12/2024 on Kohls Charge. The current balances showing on the report are all accurate however. Should I bother to dispute this? I only care about it if it affects appyling with new lenders soon like I'm going to do with Citi and Amex. Do they look at the high balance section on the report and make it a reason to deny with revolving accounts having too many high balances? When the current reports all come out I will be at a total of 0.46% util which is fantastic.

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a high balance need not be a reported balance, if the balance on the card was at any point that amount, it's fair game for the lender to report it as such. high balances are a good thing, they show you've paid off high balances.

use the transunion service center and get free daily reports so you don't need to wait for mailed reports 

https://service.transunion.com/dss/dashboard.page 

[EverettSimmons]

Thank you so much for the info.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@IcyCool7227 wrote:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Greater-quot-High-Balance-quot-see-in-Tr...

That thread is too old to post to so I just have a question to start here. TransUnion CS sent me a free copy of my most recent credit report today. Some of the old high balances are inaccurate. For example I never had a high balance of $913 on my Mercury Rewards Visa account in the months of 9-24 to 12-24 or a high balance of $470 from 7/2022 to 12/2024 on Kohls Charge. The current balances showing on the report are all accurate however. Should I bother to dispute this? I only care about it if it affects appyling with new lenders soon like I'm going to do with Citi and Amex. Do they look at the high balance section on the report and make it a reason to deny with revolving accounts having too many high balances? When the current reports all come out I will be at a total of 0.46% util which is fantastic.

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@IcyCool7227 

Absolutely not.

An elevated high balance can be a good thing. It does not impact score except possibly for the month it occurred. It does show ability to manage and paydown higher levels of debt if subsequent months show low utilization.

It is important to be aware that HB can be either highest accumulated balance during any billing cycle OR highest statement balance. What gets reported as HB is up to the creditor. What gets used for utilization is last reported statement balance.

As an example, let's consider a card with a $10k CL. Assume previously reported HB is $1k. Now the card receives heavy use during a monthly cycle. Accumulated charges reach $5k before a progress payment payment is made. The progress payment drops balance to $500 after which time the billing cycle ends. A statement balance of $500 is reported.

Will the reported high balance change? If the creditor uses highest accumulated balance, a new HB of $5k will be reported. If the creditor chooses to only consider statement balances, HB will still be $1k. In either case statement balance is $500 so utilization for the month is 5%.

I prefer it when creditors report highest accumulated balance as HB. With AMEX charge cards high balance (HB) is used to calculate card utilization on Fico EX score 2 => (statement balance)/(high balance). This is done as a work around for npsl charge cards.

[AndySoCal]

@IcyCool7227  There is nothing to dispute. The high balance field simply means that is the highest balance  that credit card has ever reached including during the statment period.  My Walmart  Cap One credit card high balance was the month I bought my IPad + groceries. In terms of FICO scoring it used if credit limit is not reported on credit card. On charge card it is irrelevant. A charge card is defined where the balance in full is due each month.

[IcyCool7227]

Thanks for all those points. On the other hand if a creditor looks at the report and sees one month that a card has been maxed out does that matter either to the algorithim or an analyst manually negatively? For example when I was on vacation in July my Chase card went a little over the $500 limit back then to $558 with the balance reporting but I brought it way down next month.

[coldfusion]

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@IcyCool7227 wrote:

Thanks for all those points. On the other hand if a creditor looks at the report and sees one month that a card has been maxed out does that matter either to the algorithim or an analyst manually negatively? For example when I was on vacation in July my Chase card went a little over the $500 limit back then to $558 with the balance reporting but I brought it way down next month.

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In your case it would have impacted the scoring when the account reported the $558 balance because you had a card reporting with 90+% utilization.  However because that metric has no memory your scores would have been refactored again the next month (or if you had at any point during that month paid the current balance down to $0.00 as Chase reports the new updated $0 balance out-of-cycle when that is done) when Chase reported the much lower balance.   An analyst on a manual review should have noted the overage but a $558 balance on a $500 card wouldn't be hard to explain and if they had ever visited the clue store they would be mindful that Chase wouldn't have authorized the overage in the first place if they felt that you were an at-risk cardholder.

If i had a $558 balance reporting on a $500 card I'd probably hold off applying for credit if I reasonably could until the updated lower balance had reported but in and of itself it isn't something to lose sleep over.

[AndySoCal]

@IcyCool7227  I agree with @coldfusion. If the the credit report has credit trended data the lender would see where high balance was and when the balance was paid off. Depends on where and who is furnishing the credit report to the lender if the high balance. Some will report the higher of the credit limit and high balance or if the credit limit is not reported the high balance will be used or both fields will be reported. 
Edited to add  I checked my Experian credit report  which reports both fields. I looked at a few of my credit cards  my Discover card high balance is  10 to 15 years ago and JC Penney high balance is 7 or 8 years ago when I bought a mattress and related items.  I would not worry about it.