It’s True

[joeyv1985]

My Fico 8 scores dropped anywhere between 9-14 points because all of my CC's showed a $0 balance. One went from $262 to $0, while another went from $8(yes $8) to $0. The latter I paid 1 day after the statement arrived and for some reason it reported it to the CB's as a $0 balance. Only balance that doesn't report is my Amex Plat that showed a balance of about $1200. 2 of the CC's haven't had a balance report for a couple of months. Frustrating. 

[Mr_Mojo_Risin]

Yep very true! Most of the DP's I've read say a $10-20 balance is usually pretty solid for AZEO. If that's what you were trying to do with the $8.

Was the $8 balance with Chase by chance? They're good for updating whenever a balance is paid to 0.

[joeyv1985]

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@Mr_Mojo_Risin wrote:

Yep very true! Most of the DP's I've read say a $10-20 balance is usually pretty solid for AZEO. If that's what you were trying to do with the $8.

Was the $8 balance with Chase by chance? They're good for updating whenever a balance is paid to 0.

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Hello Bowiefan,

Yes it was a Chase Sapphire Card. You live and you learn I guess. What gets me is when the balance for the Chase went from $0 to $19, and Equifax dinged my score by about 5 points. Can't win. 

[Mr_Mojo_Risin]

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@joeyv1985 wrote:

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@Mr_Mojo_Risin wrote:

Yep very true! Most of the DP's I've read say a $10-20 balance is usually pretty solid for AZEO. If that's what you were trying to do with the $8.

Was the $8 balance with Chase by chance? They're good for updating whenever a balance is paid to 0.

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Hello Bowiefan,

Yes it was a Chase Sapphire Card. You live and you learn I guess. What gets me is when the balance for the Chase went from $0 to $19, and Equifax dinged my score by about 5 points. Can't win. 

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I know what you mean. 

It's like walking a tight rope sometimes! Lol

[Anonymous]

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@joeyv1985 wrote:

My Fico 8 scores dropped anywhere between 9-14 points because all of my CC's showed a $0 balance.

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All it will take is for one of your cards to report a [non-zero] balance and those 9-14 points will immediately return.  Utilization is only a single point in time metric, so no need to sweat an all-zero penality as you can "fix" it very quickly if you desire.

[joeyv1985]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@joeyv1985 wrote:

My Fico 8 scores dropped anywhere between 9-14 points because all of my CC's showed a $0 balance.

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All it will take is for one of your cards to report a [non-zero] balance and those 9-14 points will immediately return.  Utilization is only a single point in time metric, so no need to sweat an all-zero penality as you can "fix" it very quickly if you desire.

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Agree @Anonymous. But it seems so "petty" on their part to punish you for keeping your finances in check. I realized it's a charge card, but the Amex Plat showed $1200 reporting. It's not like I didn't use any of my plastic.

[Anonymous]

That's just how the mechanism works. Since charge cards don't have a publicized limit, they can't be worked into the utilization percentage. FICO sees zero balances and zero utilization on revolvers and basically can't assess your ability to manage debt because you show no debt, so it lowers your score (remember, scoring was invented for the benefit of lenders, not consumers). Show it $10 on one card and you'll gain the lost points back as BBS was saying. Newer versions such as FICO 10T utilize trended data so they may be able to account for usage when showing zero balances, since they use a "look back" of around 24 months. If 10T is adopted there's a chance that the all-zero penalty goes away because of that (guesswork on my part - I have no knowledge of its workings and no one I know of uses it).

[joeyv1985]

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@Anonymous wrote:

That's just how the mechanism works. Since charge cards don't have a publicized limit, they can't be worked into the utilization percentage. FICO sees zero balances and zero utilization on revolvers and basically can't assess your ability to manage debt because you show no debt, so it lowers your score (remember, scoring was invented for the benefit of lenders, not consumers). Show it $10 on one card and you'll gain the lost points back as BBS was saying. Newer versions such as FICO 10T utilize trended data so they may be able to account for usage when showing zero balances, since they use a "look back" of around 24 months. If 10T is adopted there's a chance that the all-zero penalty goes away because of that (guesswork on my part - I have no knowledge of its workings and no one I know of uses it).

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Copy that. I'm going to the grocery store in the next hour or so and buy some potatoes and a loofah on my Citi DC that reports towards the end of the week. 

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@joeyv1985 wrote:

My Fico 8 scores dropped anywhere between 9-14 points because all of my CC's showed a $0 balance.  Frustrating. 

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The truth will set you free .

[joeyv1985]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@joeyv1985 wrote:

My Fico 8 scores dropped anywhere between 9-14 points because all of my CC's showed a $0 balance.

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All it will take is for one of your cards to report a [non-zero] balance and those 9-14 points will immediately return.  Utilization is only a single point in time metric, so no need to sweat an all-zero penality as you can "fix" it very quickly if you desire.

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One of my CC's reported a $22 balance, and Equifax bumped up my score by 21 points. Whew!