@dragontears wrote:
@IngyHere wrote:So I have 10 accounts, average credit age is 6y 9m, 4 revolving cards, a personal loan and a student loan. I decided to actually use my AmEx Blue to spend $2k and let it roll over. This is with combined limits around $50k. Zero balance on cards for months until now.
Before reporting: EX FICO8 807, TU VS3.0 808, EQ VS3.0 808.
After reporting: EX FICO8 807, TU VS3.0 761, EQ VS3.0 761.
Wow! So for spending 14% on a single revolving card I got busted for 47 points. I actually thought it would help to carry over a balance on one card for a few months to pay it off gradually. Two cards are not that old, from around the new year. Is this a case of no good deed goes unpunished, or consumers should never use credit if they don't want to be penalized? Are those cards meant to sit there??? Any advice is very welcomed ... Thank you!
What lender are you concerned with that uses V3???
If none of your current/future lenders use that model what does it matter if it changes?
OP-The EX score you show is a FICO score. The EQ and TU are both Vantage Scores. So the score used by most lenders, FICO, did not budge, so there was no penalty on FICO based on the data you provided
@IngyHere wrote:So I have 10 accounts, average credit age is 6y 9m, 4 revolving cards, a personal loan and a student loan. I decided to actually use my AmEx Blue to spend $2k and let it roll over. This is with combined limits around $50k. Zero balance on cards for months until now.
Before reporting: EX FICO8 807, TU VS3.0 808, EQ VS3.0 808.
After reporting: EX FICO8 807, TU VS3.0 761, EQ VS3.0 761.
Wow! So for spending 14% on a single revolving card I got busted for 47 points. I actually thought it would help to carry over a balance on one card for a few months to pay it off gradually. Two cards are not that old, from around the new year. Is this a case of no good deed goes unpunished, or consumers should never use credit if they don't want to be penalized? Are those cards meant to sit there??? Any advice is very welcomed ...
Thank you!
You'll make yourself crazy worrying about the Vantage scores.
Just concentrate on the FICO scores.
Hi @IngyHere. 
The bottom line here is that lenders are going to yawn if they see 4% overall utilization and a single positive balance on a card with 14% utilization. The only way score would come into play is if it's low enough to exclude you from something like a better interest rate on a mortgage or car loan.
As others have said, don't get bent out of shape over VantageScore 3. Look at it as a data point that piques some interest for those who'd like to figure out the ins and outs of VantageScore. But it doesn't matter as far as credit and lending go.
If people were to ask about the effect on FICO if they increased their balances like you did, I think we would have responded that some FICO scores wouldn't budge while others might drop slightly. By slightly, I mean maybe one to five points and certainly less than ten.
In other words, there'd be nothing to worry about unless you need every single point potentially available to you. In that case, you would want to show a small balance on one card (at least $5 but not much more), with the rest reporting zero. Here on the forum, we call that AZEO (all zero except one).
By the way, FICO doesn't care if you're revolving a balance or not as there's nothing built in to measure that. It doesn't know if you've been dragging out the same balance for months or if the balance you show every month is coming from new charges.
VantageScore 4 does penalize you if you don't pay in full every month. Upcoming verisons of FICO will likely do that too. VantageScore 4 actually does have some relevance because it's used by Synchrony.
@HeavenOhio wrote:Hi @IngyHere.
...
If people were to ask about the effect on FICO if they increased their balances like you did, I think we would have responded that some FICO scores wouldn't budge while others might drop slightly. By slightly, I mean maybe one to five points and certainly less than ten.
...
VantageScore 4 does penalize you if you don't pay in full every month. Upcoming verisons of FICO will likely do that too. VantageScore 4 actually does have some relevance because it's used by Synchrony.
Hi Heaven,
I looked back at my EX FICO8, and indeed I took a small 3 point hit when the AmEx Blue balance reported. Then after the installment payment reported on my personal loan it bounced back 2 points. Check that, verified!
Now I don't have a service that reports my TU or EQ FICO anymore so I only see the VS from Credit Karma. Since Synchrony seems to be behind a lot of store cards (list) I'll keep in mind having a zero balance if I ever apply (no plans, currently). Thank you for the advice.
It should be noted that a month earlier I had only a small, sub $100 balance on another card (basically AZEO) and my VS3.0 had improved then.
Thank you all for the information.
