Credit utilization reduced and only 7 point

[Anonymous]

Hi

This is my first post; however I am an avid reader of this forum and  has taken many advice which helped me to improve my credit score.  You guys truly helped many people thru out the years. Thank you.

The traditional wisdom is that when you lower credit utilization you get a significant bump in credit score.

In past month I have reduced my credit utilization from 77% to 26%  yet I only received only 7 point. Now my EQ fico score is stuck in 657. Fico does show the credit utilization to 26% as of this morning.

Do you know why I only received 7 point?

[Shogun]

It just depends on what else is on your CR.  I know max % boost is less than 9%.

[bluescale]

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@Shogun wrote:

It just depends on what else is on your CR.  I know max % boost is less than 9%.

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What do you mean the max boost is 9%?  If you go from 100% utilization to 2% utilization, you'll never see more than a 9% boost to score?

[Simply827]

It means your max utilization score comes from having less than 9% overall UTL. Ideally one card should report less than 9 percent, the rest zero.

[AndySoCal]

Do you have an ynegative information being reported if so how recent?

[Anonymous]

HI, first off congrats on lowering the utilization! thats a great start to a healthier credit score. secondly, how did you reduce it? did it takes months or did it happen in one day? Because that could be a major factor into why your score only increased 9 points. What also matters if you have any negative (tax lein, bankruptcy etc) on your report.

[Anonymous]

1)  Well I have 2- 30 days miss payments - 3 years 4 months old. I had this on my report last time I  ran report 3 months ago.

2) I have 2 collections but both are  3 years 9 months  old and they were in the report last time I ran report.

3) I reduced my  UTLI over a month in 3 different cards. All three cards are reporting balance now. However in one card I got  $ 4000 increase and another card $ 1000. Here are my card info

JC Peny – limit  $ 1550 – CLI - $1000, Balance $25

Care Credit ( GE) limit - $ 7000- CLI - $4000 , Balance -  $2,200

Capital One – Limit $2000 – Balance - $470

All together I paid down  $2,300 in one month.

[Slab]

That's great that you paid down so much that quickly however, having a balance on 3 cards is holding you back from a higher score. Not much but, the 3 balances are probably keeping the score down a bit.

[AndySoCal]

If this is  the case you would see a reason to many accounts with balances.