How Long to Reflect Changes

[Anonymous]

Hello all!

I just pulled my credit report from TU, which came out to 756. I would like to have it over 760, and the Score simulator said that I can achive it by paying off a set amount of my revolving account balance. My revolving account balance is $750, and I just paid off $700- I am wondering how long will it take for the credit reporting agencies to reflect this change in my report? I suppose this is not an instant change, i.e. I cannot pull the TU score right now and see it jumped up from 756, can I?

I am looking to get a car loan for $25,000 and would really like to improve my score to increase my chances of getting a good rate.

Thanks a lot!

[vanillabean]

 dreamcatcher86, welcome to the forums!

Do you have just that one credit card? Is it Amex? Did you pay the $700 before or after the statement cut?

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I have 4 credit cards, including one from Amex. A major chunk of the $650 balance is from Amex, and I paid it off, and have about $50 left. I paid off all the balances on other cards, (2 MasterCards, and 1 Visa).

The balance for Amex and Visa were paid off after the statement cut for this month. The 2 MasterCards have been paid off before the statement for this month.

Thanks for the replies!

[vanillabean]

Amex in most cases takes about a month to report to the bureaus unfortunately. For balances that haven't been paid down, they want to resolve any issues beforehand. I can see it from both sides.

Still, the balance on my wife's Amex card most recently was $0 and supposedly therefore should have been reported on the last day of the calendar month. Now ten days in the next month, it has yet to report.

To make matters worse, it's my experience that Amex updates on TU credit reports tend to take closer to two months. We are curiously eager to find out how much her score will drop with all cards at $0.

So patience is a (necessary) virtue!

[Anonymous]

I paid off 2 credit cards (that had been foolishly maxed out every month) and both my TU and Equifax scores went up exactly 40 points in less than 30 days.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else who would like to share what their experiences have been regarding how quickly changes are reflected on the credit report? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

In my (limited) experience, it depends on the reporting time for the credit card. My Chase accounts are the end of the month, so any payments I make by the 28th or so, will be visible by the 5th or so of the next month. My USAA MC is mid-month, so I should be seeing my recent paydowns in a few days.

[GregB]

I wouldn't want to say I know ALL the details but I know enough to understand there isn't a simple answer. Until I dig out of a big hole, I'm keeping track of 22 Revolving Accounts and running 20-40 reports/updates per month.

After paying a balance on a Revolving Account:

First there is the delay until the next statement cuts. Virtually all creditors report the STATEMENT balance shortly after the statement is generated. There are a very few creditors that report the balance on a different date such as the last day of the month.

Second is the delay until the creditor updates the info to the Credit Reporting Agencies: EQ, EX, TU. Most do this immediately. Capital One seems to take an extra day or two. Some don't seem to update 7 days a week so a weekend can add an extra delay. Amex seems to be VERY erratic. They almost always seem to take longer. Sometimes a few days, sometimes almost a month, sometimes skipping reporting a month COMPLETELY, sometimes not reporting to all three CRAs.

Third is the delay before the CRA updates the info. EX wins the prize on this, updating almost immediately. TU and EQ take longer, with TU usually being the slowest.

A TYPICAL scenario is that my Amex statement will cut on the 4th. Around the 15th, TU will update my Amex balance showing the update as happening on the 9th. This seems to mean that it took Amex about 5 days to update TU and then it took TU another 5 days to update. The other extreme would be that my BofA account closes on the 21st and EX is showing the new balance on the 22nd. I have had Amex be so erratic that two updates happen a couple days apart.

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

This is my first post.  Thank God for this site, I have learned so much from reading all your posts.

My problem......

I have been struggling to pay off/ pay down credit cards.  When I first checked my report last month -Trans - 628, Equifax - 619

Problems listed were Ratio of balance to limit - 69% (Trans)  71% (Equifax) and 11 accts w/ balances (this includes mortgage and car loan). 

In one month I paid off 3 cards and made on time payments on all others.  I checked my scores and Trans had increased from 628 - 648

but Equifax remained at 619.  Both list that I now have 9 accts w/ balances - even though it should be 8, Sears card not reported.  Both are showing

decrease in balance to limit ratio - Trans showing 65% and Equifax showing 68%.

My question is why is Equifax not showing any score change?  It is clearly acknowledging some improvement but no score change?

How in the world can paying off 3 cards not improve my score?  I see from reading your posts that it may be another month before the

3rd card shows up on both reports. Yet, both are reporting improvements yet no change in Equifax.

What should I do?   Any help is appreciated.

[GregB]

There are steps in each item that are included in your score. Let's say the utilization steps are at 60% and 70%. You drop your utilization from 69% to 61%. That wasn't enough to generate a change in score. You are headed the right direction and your work will eventually be rewarded. The other side is that you could have had a utilization at 70.1% and dropped it to 69.9% resulting in a change for very little decrease in actual utilization.

Since the FICO algorithms were developed when computer power was far more expensive than today, I would guess that they will eventually make the steps smaller.

Since the utilization is only ONE factor that adds up to your score and the score is a 3-digit number, it wouldn't be possible to make the score changes very small. It also would generate many alerts over very small changes. If you were monitoring your score, would you actually want an alert saying your score dropped 1 point? It would be impossible for the algorithms to ever make everyone happy but I would be happier if the ranges were a bit smaller.