Accounts with balances

[Anonymous]

My non-FICO scores through TrueCredit have always been low to mid 700's so I recently decided to check my actual FICO score out of curiosity.  I was shocked to see that my EQ score was only 681.  However, when I had 4 auto inquiries drop off on the same day last week, it jumped to 698.  I saw that I had "too many accounts with balances" as a factor that was holding down my score, so I decided to pay off one of my cards before the close date to see what would happen.  When this account got reported as $0 balance, my score jumped to 725.  I have three more cards I would like to try this with.  My question is will each additional zero balance card increase my score by another 25 points per card?  My background:  9 revolving, 4 installment accounts.  3 inquires in last 12 months, 5 year credit history.  Thank you!

[smallfry]

Nope.

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, welcome to the forums!

No, you get into the law of diminishing returns. But there might still be some points out there for you.

Don't have all report $0. Oddly, most of us do better when one card reports a minimal balance. Don't forget to pay it off as soon as it reports, though.

If you haven't already, please read Understanding Your FICO ® Score and Credit Scoring 101 (at least the first post.)

These will give you the background knowledge you need to understand what you read here on the forums.