@Anonymous wrote:
I feel that a temporary job loss should have no effect on your credit score, especially when all your payments were made on time and with you apparently having the financial ability to weather a short term job loss. With that being said, I have to wonder what FICO is all about when it comes to your financial life. For instance, FICO says that you should not use more than 30% of your available line of credit on a credit card. Well then, why give you a larger line when you are not supposed to use it, especially if you have the ability to pay it when due. Who made FICO God is what I ask in times like this. As well, I drive for a limousine service and deal with the corporate world almost exclusively and you hear some stories about the credit world. Many people are reducing their line of credit use to comply with the will of God (FICO) and then the credit card companies go and reduce your line of credit on your card to what you brought it down to - sometimes by as much as 75% of your original line of credit. Now I ask you, is that fair? Perhaps FICO should either revise their "rules" about how you live with credit or get with the credit card companies and changes this 30% use of your line of credit thing. And look at all the products that FICO sells - all designed to bring in money which translates to greed, the American way. To my estimation, FICO and the credit reporting agencies are kind of like one of Bernie Madoff's ponzi schemes. The pity of it all is that the average American cannot see through all this, and that is indeed a real shame.
FICO scores on what gets reported, so you can use your credit cards at 100% of the credit limit every month if you wanted to. The goal is to pay off the balances to $0 before it reports and most cards report the balances you had on the statement date. So, it's ok to use more than 30% just pay it off before your statement cuts and make sure your CC balances are where you want it to be on that day.
Yes, many credit card companies slashed limits, especially in this economy. They are justifiably doing so to mitigate losses especially with credit card defaults at an all-time high. It has impacted folks in here with bad credit and bad scores and happened to people in here with 800+ FICO scores and $0 balances. I don't blame lenders for doing that, even though our purchasing power has been cut. Knock on wood, but of 14 CCs, I only had one card cut the credit limit and that was a Bloomingdales from $2500 to $800, but with some convincing they bumped it to $2200, even though I never spent more than $500 ever on the card. By the way, a slashed credit limit will never hurt your FICO score. What will hurt is the utilization increase if you are carrying balances higher than what they should be.
It's corporate greed that puts a roof over my head and puts food on my table. I'm rather fond of it.
