Of course I am familiar with how to calculate utilization... add up balances, divide by available balance, etc etc.
However, I feel I might be in a bit of a wishy-washy situation. Some background:
I have three accounts which I was apparently authorized users for. Two of em have/had high balances on it, and since I dont actually use these accounts (they were set up a long time ago to help give me a boost of credit history during my early years), I called up these companies and asked them remove me as authorized users. They said okay, and I also asked to make sure that this new information is reported correctly to the three reporting agencies.
I pulled my credit reports recently, since that time, and found that these accounts in question are no longer being reported (i.e. the last time a payment and balance is reported is just before i removed myself as AU), and it does show that these accounts are "terminated". As an example, my TU report shows the information as such:
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PO BOX 982235 EL PASO, TX 79998-2235 Phone number not available Date Opened: 10/04/2006 Responsibility: Account Relationship Terminated (05/13/2013) Account Type: Revolving Account | Date Updated: 05/13/2013 Payment Received: $100 Last Payment Made: 04/30/2013 | Pay Status: Current; Paid or Paying as Agreed Terms: $79 per month, paid Monthly |
High Balance: High balance of $5,001 from 01/2011 to 05/2013 Credit Limit: Credit limit of $4,300 from 01/2011 to 05/2013 What is concerning is from two separate issues (or potential issues): 1.) I recently applied for a Chase Freedom card, and was subsequently denied. Upon recon, the person I talked to mentioned one of reasons of denial (among others) was that I'm close to my limits on my "Bank of America" cards. I was sure to mention that these BoA accounts are (1) not mine, and that they are AU accounts, and (2) I've already removed myself from association with these accounts and that BoA already (should've) rectified this. He responded that, this was not what his data was showing him. I of course insisted, and I in fact have a copy of my TU report (which is what they pulled) on hand to verify that it does state the account relationship was terminated. He had to put me on hold to dig further, or something. Eventually he was able to verify that they were, in fact, authorized user accounts. 2.) I keep track of my credit implicitly through credit karma, and the two BofA balances are still on there. I contacted CK, and they gave me a canned response along the lines of TU is reporting it so cant change blablabla. I forwarded them a copy of the above, highlighting that these accounts are terminated and that balances shouldn't be factored in. They responded can't change what TU reports blablabla. Pretty much you're SOL until TU updates. "But, TU shows.. bah nevermind." Of course I don't necessarily care what CK shows me, since I know how to calculate the accurate utilization ratio, but my concern is what if other lenders are seeing this information? Thereby artificially/incorrectly driving up my utilization? My question is, how come when I pull the reports it clearly shows that these accounts are "terminated" and yet both Chase and CK seems to have issues, in some way or another, with seeing that information? My second question is should this concern me, as in the fact that lenders can potentially view these high-utilization accounts as my own accounts, and take some adverse actions against me? |
