Decreasing your utilization yields NO increase in scores?

[Anonymous]

So I paid down all my CCs except one. Finally myFICO updates one of the 5 cards. 93% decrease so it now has a 7% utilization and no score increase? I'm really starting to see this who credit card thing as a huge joke of a game that no one can really get a grasp on. If CC utilization is 35% of your score, then there is no way you get ZERO increase with a 93% pay down. Makes absolutely no sense. And this is from Equifax. The other two haven't updated anything. 

[BallBounces]

Incomplete data.

[DoroLucky]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I paid down all my CCs except one. Finally myFICO updates one of the 5 cards. 93% decrease so it now has a 7% utilization and no score increase? I'm really starting to see this who credit card thing as a huge joke of a game that no one can really get a grasp on. If CC utilization is 35% of your score, then there is no way you get ZERO increase with a 93% pay down. Makes absolutely no sense. And this is from Equifax. The other two haven't updated anything. 

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Majority of the time, I ALWAYS see a score jump with my util. decreases....especially with Equifax. 

[Anonymous]

Wait until the other cards update the lower util as well. You should see a score increase then. How high is the util on the other 4 cards? That may have something to do with why you didn't see a score change from the decrease in util on the one card.

[Anonymous]

Based off what I have learned about this you will need to give them an additional 30-60 days to see any increase in your score. The reason is because they want to make sure you did not borrow money from somewhere to pay down your credit cards or open an installment loan with someone to pay off your credit cards. . I believe several members have talked about this in the past.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

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@JmmyBrdn wrote:
Based off what I have learned about this you will need to give them an additional 30-60 days to see any increase in your score. The reason is because they want to make sure you did not borrow money from somewhere to pay down your credit cards or open an installment loan with someone to pay off your credit cards. . I believe several members have talked about this in the past.

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I'm sorry, but this is just not correct.

Utilization changes are immediately factored into FICO scores.

[thom02099]

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@JmmyBrdn wrote:
Based off what I have learned about this you will need to give them an additional 30-60 days to see any increase in your score. The reason is because they want to make sure you did not borrow money from somewhere to pay down your credit cards or open an installment loan with someone to pay off your credit cards. . I believe several members have talked about this in the past.

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I'm sorry, but this is just not correct.

Utilization changes are immediately factored into FICO scores.

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+1.  Untrue.  

A credit report is a snapshot in time.  It is of the moment of the report.  Just as there is no memory factor, there is no anticipatory factor.  The utilisation changes are immediately factored in, as CH-7-Rebuilding noted. 

Just as scores can go up with a decrease in utilisation, they can also go down with an increase in utilisation.  But there's no anticipation of this occurring.

[Anonymous]

1.  I ALWAYS PAY BEFORE the Statement Date.  As Balance ON Statement Date is what is reported to CRs.
So you would indeed need to wait an Additional 30 days if not PAID per above.  
Or file a Dispute through the 3 CRs.  (Takes Time, but WORKS to FORCE Updates).

2.  I use FAKO (Credit Karma) as a Weekly or Bi-Weekly TOOL to help me stay on top of Reporting.  Just depends on where my Gardening Efforts are FOCUSED.

[Anonymous]

I see a difference in responses given here. TO be more accurate, I keep up with my credit report dates. I have 5 cards, all but 1 are paid down less than 10%, two are paid to around 3%. All paid this month prior to report dates. So when the first card reported a 93% decrease, I didn't see an increase in score on this site. I'm a bit annoyed by it since I'm trying to monitor this for a future mortgage application soon. CK updated finally with an 11% increase from it but only on Equifax. Transunion hasn't done anything. Now I got an email alert showing the decrease, yet the scores didn't budge. In the next week or so I'll have two more reporting around the same huge percentage in decrease utilization. 

[lg8302ch]

There are different factors for Fico scoring.  When your utilization comes down then Fico does increase unless you have similar low utilization % and something counts stronger. I have the example where I pay down balances on more than 1 account and overall utilization gets lower but my score even drops. The reason for the drop is that 1 or more accounts report balances.  Let's say I have 14 accounts and 7 accounts with balances. I pay down multiple accounts and have lower overall utilization but get a score drop because there is a new account reporting 1$ charge. That means over 50% of my accounts report a balance and this fact gets scored stronger on my profile.  I have done all sorts of testing with my profile as I love to challenge MyFico and get some knowledge out of my Score Watch subscription. There were some interesting results. My ultimate surprise in 2013 with former model was with 8 accounts I had at that time. I managed to get a 45 points difference with same utilization % and same amount but in different ways.  My test was 8 accounts report 1$ balance and the next cycle there were 7 accounts 0  balance and 1 account 8$. You agree it is the same utilization and same amount but the result was 45 points difference at that time.  My strongest enemy today is still the number of accounts reporting a balance once it goes over 50% of my accounts I have a drop of 20-30 points with same utilization.  Each profile acts differently but if you have score monitor option it is quite nice to test a bit. Just do not test with all accounts maxed out. I was really nervous when I did this with 2 accounts as the last thing I wanted to spook a lender.