Manually update CB report on your own?

Anonymous · ‎12-24-2014

Had some issues come up and am going to take out a bank loan within the next 2 weeks. Currently my util is about 45%. All of that is tied to one card but they reported electronically to all the bureaus on the 22nd. I do have the money to bring the util down to around 5 percent which should bump me over 720. They said that they couldn't report again electronically till the 22nd of Jan but would issue a letter to me that I could give to all of the CB's. Has anybody ever done this? How long does it take for the CB's to update once they receive the letter?

gdale6 · ‎12-24-2014

@Anonymous wrote:
Had some issues come up and am going to take out a bank loan within the next 2 weeks. Currently my util is about 45%. All of that is tied to one card but they reported electronically to all the bureaus on the 22nd. I do have the money to bring the util down to around 5 percent which should bump me over 720. They said that they couldn't report again electronically till the 22nd of Jan but would issue a letter to me that I could give to all of the CB's. Has anybody ever done this? How long does it take for the CB's to update once they receive the letter?

The CRAs will not update based on a mailed in letter even if its on the creditors letterhead they still have to query the creditor to verify that its in fact true and if the credttor does not respond you could possibly lose the entire TL. I would either delay the bank loan or ask them if there is going to be a problem, we here on these forums sometimes worry way to much about utilization to our own detreiment. Happy Holidays

takeshi74 · ‎12-26-2014

@gdale6 wrote:
we here on these forums sometimes worry way to much about utilization to our own detreiment.

True but 45% is a significant amount of utilization. It's not like the OP is fretting over being at 11% when the recommendation for optimal is 10% or less.

+1 on the CRA's not accepting a letter. If we could update our own reports we'd all be doing that already. It would be far to easy to abuse that so the CRA's are definitely going to verify with the creditor. Either the creditor updates the CRA or the loan gets pushed back until after reporting or the OP applies anyway with high utilization. OP needs to decide based on the biggest priority and options available.

Anonymous · ‎12-26-2014

Thanks for the replies! I didn't think it was possible to update your own CR. Think I will just try and hold out till the next reporting cycle and get the util down.