CC utilization "steps"

[Anonymous]

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@GregB wrote:

Definitely been at 760-770 FICO 8 with more than 50% utilization before but I also had 3-4 more accounts and 3-4 more with zero balance. Several accounts closed with stores that went out of business like The Great Indoors, etc. I hope it moves a bit as that one 98% util card is 5.24% interest and more than a third of the total balance of all accounts. The last account will probably report zero in a month or two.

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@GregB well I feel your pain, but finances over ficos is what I always say. Just start knocking down the high interest ones and when you get to that one, you get to that one. When you do, you'll get the points for that.

Meanwhile you'll still be earning points as your aggregate utilization crosses thresholds and as you cross balance thresholds. I mean unless you need the score for a reason, I can't blame you for leaving the balance on the low interest card, although I would still recommend bringing it under 90% because that may cause AA from other lenders. 

never good to have a TL over 90%, 70% is pushing it. 

[GregB]

Well, it appears dropping those first two Utilizations below 50% might have been worth something. They both reported the new balances this morning to EX and my EX FICO 8 score went up 1 point to 720. The only other thing that reported was #4 also reported $0 again but it has been $0 for a year. They also did a CLD from $5001 to $2501 due to lack of use. Not going to Home Depot during the pandemic, sorry. 

So, #3 and #5 close today, so perhaps they will update together tomorrow, which should show me what happens when the number of accounts with zero balance goes from 1 to 3.

[Anonymous]

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@GregB wrote:

Well, it appears dropping those first two Utilizations below 50% might have been worth something. They both reported the new balances this morning to EX and my EX FICO 8 score went up 1 point to 720. The only other thing that reported was #4 also reported $0 again but it has been $0 for a year. They also did a CLD from $5001 to $2501 due to lack of use. Not going to Home Depot during the pandemic, sorry. 

So, #3 and #5 close today, so perhaps they will update together tomorrow, which should show me what happens when the number of accounts with zero balance goes from 1 to 3.

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@GregB it's more likely you crossed a balance threshold for that point than a utilization threshold. You may get some points by adding two zeros, but it may not be enough, we will look forward to finding out. Good luck!

[GregB]

#3 & #5 dropped to zero.

Gained 3 points to 723 (EX FICO 9).

#8 should drop from 83% to 44% and #9 should drop from 66% to 45% on same day next week.

Followed by #10 from 41% to 39% and #11 from 85% to 61%. 

If these noticeably help the score with #7 only changing from 98% to 97%, that should help to determine the importance of each utilization or the highest utilization.

[Anonymous]

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@GregB wrote:

#3 & #5 dropped to zero.

Gained 3 points to 723 (EX FICO 9).

#8 should drop from 83% to 44% and #9 should drop from 66% to 45% on same day next week.

Followed by #10 from 41% to 39% and #11 from 85% to 61%. 

If these noticeably help the score with #7 only changing from 98% to 97%, that should help to determine the importance of each utilization or the highest utilization.

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@GregB unfortunately not because it does not rule out balance thresholds or total amount owed Thresholds. Now if you could control for crossing specific thresholds and realized score changes then and were able to reverse it and get the same numbers, that would be pretty explicit. 

[GregB]

That is why I said HELP to determine. 

Can you explain "balance thresholds" and "total amount owed thresholds"?
These changes represent a fairly small amount of total revolving debt. The first two changes, which represent the first 6 accounts on that list only represented total balance on my report going from $134k to $128k. The next two groups of changes represent triple the dollar changes and have already been paid. 

[Anonymous]

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@GregB wrote:

That is why I said HELP to determine. 

Can you explain "balance thresholds" and "total amount owed thresholds"?
These changes represent a fairly small amount of total revolving debt. The first two changes, which represent the first 6 accounts on that list only represented total balance on my report going from $134k to $128k. The next two groups of changes represent triple the dollar changes and have already been paid. 

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@GregB OK you have revolving balance thresholds. That means once the actual revolving dollar amount crosses those thresholds, there are point deductions and the reverse is true.

The thresholds are not well known and we're just beginning to try to track those. It seems on version 8 at TransUnion, the first one may be between $4500 and $5500 roughly. So it's possible they could exist roughly every $5000, but then again that's all conjecture on my part until we confirm it. It would seem reasonable the thresholds would be the same across bureaus, but that may not be true. The mortgage scores definitely have lower thresholds, like between $100 and $200, For the first one I believe. 

The algorithm also takes into account the total amount owed on everything meaning Revolvers a Loans and openended Accounts Accounts. We know nothing about those thresholds yet.

so if anything you may have crossed one balance threshold possibly on that first round of changes, then and how many points that's worth is going to be scorecard dependent, but for instance on mine it appeared to be 6 points on TU8, which coincidentally happened to be the same magnitude for a number of accounts with a balance threshold there.