Dormant Account

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you PIF by your statement closing date and it reports a 0 balance on your reports...could your account still be dormant?  Are we talking about simply using the card or using the card and you must allow a balance to report 1 time every 6 months?  For example I have a Best Buy card that I run barely enough through it so Citi doesn't close it.  However I have been PIF before the statement cuts.  If I was to allow a balance to actually report, would I lose points?

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Implementing AZEO (All Zero Except One) doesn't help you build credit over time -- it's just a nice trick to implement in the 40 days before an important credit app (like a car loan, mortgage, etc.).

Since you have scores in the 800s I would (if I were you) not worry about the tiny number of points you might gain from having almost all your cards reporting $0.  Rather I would just use my cards and let their positive balances report naturally, using a tool like autopay perhaps to pay them in full.  Some months you may have many cards reporting a psoitive balance, some months only one or two.  And then if you ever do have an important credit application (car loan, home loan, etc.) you can always implement AZEO in the 40 days beforehand.

[Pikaboo-icu]

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@Revelate wrote:

I'd go as far to say as any time I've seen a drop for this (the time value is a configurable option for Equifax in monitoring solution here at myFICO) it was on passing number of revolving tradelines with balance rather than something more nefarious.

If there is a real tradeline inactivity bit, it probably just excludes the account from scoring much like a dispute would be my semi-educated guess.

Frankly doesn't really matter, I agree with TT in suggesting if you want to keep the tradeline swipe it every so often so this is basically moot.

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In my case it stated the dormant card reason but I did make the charge right before the statement cut off.

I PIF a few days later but the whopping $45 did report..

My uti is 1% but they still nailed me.. It doesn't make a lot of difference to me- I was just annoyed.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you PIF by your statement closing date and it reports a 0 balance on your reports...could your account still be dormant?  Are we talking about simply using the card or using the card and you must allow a balance to report 1 time every 6 months?  For example I have a Best Buy card that I run barely enough through it so Citi doesn't close it.  However I have been PIF before the statement cuts.  If I was to allow a balance to actually report, would I lose points?

---

Implementing AZEO (All Zero Except One) doesn't help you build credit over time -- it's just a nice trick to implement in the 40 days before an important credit app (like a car loan, mortgage, etc.).

Since you have scores in the 800s I would (if I were you) not worry about the tiny number of points you might gain from having almost all your cards reporting $0.  Rather I would just use my cards and let their positive balances report naturally, using a tool like autopay perhaps to pay them in full.  Some months you may have many cards reporting a psoitive balance, some months only one or two.  And then if you ever do have an important credit application (car loan, home loan, etc.) you can always implement AZEO in the 40 days beforehand.

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CG and TT I appreciate the direct responses.  I was actually not looking at it from the standpoint of losing points but rather the "knowledge is power" sort of thing.  Currently I am not at AZEO as I do let some balances report but others I seem to PIF just out of a habit.  I wasn't sure how FICO determined what is dormant and what is not. It was a question that I had 0 experience reading about.  Ahh fresh material! 

[AndySoCal]

Where is a link to the basic criteria for the FICO score

https://www.myfico.com/credit-education/faq/scores/fico-score-requirements

[Revelate]

Ah yeah, that notification from Scorewatch actually is for card fraud or something similar: you can actually configure the time value for it in settings.

Doesn't actually have any relevance to FICO scoring, has been around since I started on this forum from the old EQ Scorewatch product and still exists today in the monitoring system.

The balance change (presumably number of tradelines though I have seen some weirdness on TU with my recent issues there) as indicated by TU was probably the culprit.