boosting scores by overpaying bills to generate credits

[Anonymous]

When someone is going to take out a loan and wants to increase their debt to income ratio, they can prepay a credit account which they would otherwise pay off monthly. For instance, if your visa bill is normally $400, you could pay $400 before the bill is due and the $0 amount would be reported by the bureaus.

What would happen if you took that to an extreme and overpayed $1000 or $5000? Would if show on your bureau as a credit and would the temporarily lessened risk give any significant boost to your score?

[Anonymous]

This wouldn't do anything.

[Anonymous]

How would it read on the report? Does a report have the ability to show a credit or would it only show a zero?

[fishbjc]

I overpaid my Target and it's showing as ZERO on cr.

[llecs]

Of my 8 CC accounts, 5 of them have a credit due and all report as $0.

[Anonymous]

No - your account will show a balance of $0 - and the creditor will send you a check. Overpaying will not help your scores.

[marty56]

An account with a credit reports as 0 for CC's.  I have 2 that have credits and they show up as 0.

Message Edited by marty56 on 06-23-2008 07:08 PM

[Anonymous]

Some ccs won't let you pay more than amount due.  At least not on-line.  What's the point?

[llecs]

---

casinoannie97 wrote:

Some ccs won't let you pay more than amount due.  At least not on-line.  What's the point?

---

In my case, all but one CC allows me to overpay. I did so because there were pending CC charges that would have gone through after the payment date but would have gone through before the statement was cut. I paid extra to cover those charges and to ensure that the balance gets reported at $0.

[Anonymous]

I tried that before.  actually got the amount that would be due.  Tried to pay it and could not.  I think it was WAMU or CAP1.  i knew I was accruing charges. In the end I had to pay the small amounts later.

However I never go over 7% util. so I don't care if it reports as it is a good thing for me.  Using credit is a plus.  I once paid everything to zero and my scores went down

  Are you talking about paying new charges plus statement balance?  Lightbulb just came on.

Message Edited by casinoannie97 on 06-24-2008 09:30 AM