my utilization is wrong

[Anonymous]

I am brand new to this forum but hoping someone can help with a question. I check my credit score on my discover card app. and it says my utilization is 12% and it should only be 1%. i have another credit card I check my score on and it says i am using to much of my credit. my fico score has droped around 20 points the last couple months and my bankcard score 9 has droped around 50 points. i look on credit karma and i see no new accounts or inquires so i dont know how this is happening. i do have some accounts in collections and i think one credit card that was closed and i owe money on just started reporting it to the credit bureau. i looked at my credit report and nothing new was on it. I dont know that much about credit so I am hoping someone can tell me why my credit card utilization is about 10% higher than it should be.

[Anonymous]

Hard to know without specific amounts but if you have a credit card that is closed but you still owe money on it, that will report at over 100% utilization. That could be the problem.

[Anonymous]

It sounds to me like your reported balances simply haven't updated yet.  You were likely at 12% utilization the last time that Discover did an update, but they only update once per month.  Look at the date of the update.  Any reported balance changes that may have happened since then such as your utilization coming down to 1% wouldn't be seen by Discover until they update again and pull your new bureau data.

[Anonymous]

yes i figured it out. an old cc account just started reporting to the bureau. i got a letter and they offered a low price to resolve the account. should i pay the reduced amount to resolve the debt and what happens if i do pay? i also got another letter to settle another closed cc account. this closed cc account is not reporting to the bureau and is the same age as the other account. the settle price was not as good as the other cc.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

yes i figured it out. an old cc account just started reporting to the bureau. i got a letter and they offered a low price to resolve the account. should i pay the reduced amount to resolve the debt and what happens if i do pay? i also got another letter to settle another closed cc account. this closed cc account is not reporting to the bureau and is the same age as the other account. the settle price was not as good as the other cc.

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I've seen my share of this in the past. I can't tell if you are looking at a collection letter or a settlement offer directly from the CCC closed account. However way you handle this try and work with them and pay it down to zero.