This is weird, but I see the same thing. I would total all my bankcards and it never agrees with the balances I track. The only thing I can see is that it is very close to one account I have. However, I get 4-5 of these emails that pertain to total bankcards balances. It may be connected with whatever bankcaard (Visa and Mastercard) balances have reported for the week. If your balances go up or down you will see the alert and the change in FICO, if any.
Of course this is just a guess. Maybe someone else here can answer the question more definatively.
The TU alert here on MyFICO lists All Bankcards. That means, it is looking at all your not-closed revolving credit cards, not term loans, not mortgages, (I cannot vouch for charge cards, I have none) summing the open balances that have been reported to TU, and reporting that amount. I know this because I have 14 cards reporting balances, and I've started listing what EQ and EX list as the last balance for each CC. I can now tie the total that TU reports, based on the latest EQ or EX balance reported from those recent card updates, to keep track of which cards at which point in their cycle are contributing to the TU total.
I even was able to see when I brought a large balance in from a closed CC, it increased my TU balance, so Closed CC do not show on TU, in my experience. They have had glimmers of reporting on EQ and EX, but not much.
If you only have one card, it should be that card which you see in TU. If you have US Bank cards, it probably won't be the statement balance, since US Bank reports around the end of the month regardless of statement date.
TU also does not give you a direction indicator, because you could have two cards report the same day, one up, one down, and TU just gives you a new total balance, it does not know whether the cards are up or down, or both, just that it has a new balance to report.
This is also the basis for my growing conviction that the whole "all cards report zero, one card report 1%-9%" is a bunch of hoey. If TU does not care which cards have balances (or whether all cards have balances or not) why should I? The "one card report 1%-9%" seems like it optimizes only because total overall utilization on all cards is then so dang low that it cannot help but improve your score.
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the explanation NRB525. So its basically utilization of all open cards, I just need to figure out how its getting its balances.
On a side note, Im using the 1%-9% on one, Zero for the rest method this month. I'll update on how it relates to my scores once evrything clears. Im hoping for a gigantic score bump across the board since my utilization was at around 60%. After all accounts report, my overall utilization will be at around 2-3%.
This is what will really boost your score. Kudos for the pay down!
This will be lost in the noise of score changes, you won't be able to pick out much of a change just from this, it will be overwhelmed by the low utilization.
Check the EX and EQ notices, both back for two months. Use the latest individual balances reported for each card in an Excel list, then as new EX and EQ balances are reported, update the list and the TU All Bankcards can be tracked. Sometimes it takes a day or two to get enough bureaus updated, but you should be able to reconstruct the list used by TU.
@MarineVietVet wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:The TU alert here on MyFICO lists All Bankcards. That means, it is looking at all your not-closed revolving credit cards, not term loans, not mortgages, (I cannot vouch for charge cards, I have none) summing the open balances that have been reported to TU, and reporting that amount. I know this because I have 14 cards reporting balances, and I've started listing what EQ and EX list as the last balance for each CC. I can now tie the total that TU reports, based on the latest EQ or EX balance reported from those recent card updates, to keep track of which cards at which point in their cycle are contributing to the TU total.
I even was able to see when I brought a large balance in from a closed CC, it increased my TU balance, so Closed CC do not show on TU, in my experience. They have had glimmers of reporting on EQ and EX, but not much.
If you only have one card, it should be that card which you see in TU. If you have US Bank cards, it probably won't be the statement balance, since US Bank reports around the end of the month regardless of statement date.
TU also does not give you a direction indicator, because you could have two cards report the same day, one up, one down, and TU just gives you a new total balance, it does not know whether the cards are up or down, or both, just that it has a new balance to report.
This is also the basis for my growing conviction that the whole "all cards report zero, one card report 1%-9%" is a bunch of hoey. If TU does not care which cards have balances (or whether all cards have balances or not) why should I? The "one card report 1%-9%" seems like it optimizes only because total overall utilization on all cards is then so dang low that it cannot help but improve your score.
It's definitely not a one size fits all approach but it seems to work for many people including myself.
I always recommend working with different percentages over several months and see what appears to be each individual's sweet spot.
But I think It's a mistake to dismiss it outright as a bunch of hoey. As usual YMMV.
Even with exactly the same total of all open balances, total utilization, after letting the new cards pattern report for 3 full months, to allow FICO to stabilize again?
The biggest issue I have with the frequent "one card at 1%-9%" is it is used for a pat answer to "how do I optimize". The asker is not getting a clear answer, because the optimize in this case is very few points, it is not going to get the asker from 650 to 800, which often seems to be an undelying expectation, and the answer is not clear that low utilization is the objective, one card reporting is merely the way of showing it. Two cards, three cards at the same very low total utliization should be the same score.
The other issue I take with the "one card' reply is, it is overused.
One poster had 30 some cards between her and her husband. Monthly income was not predictable. all CC maxed out, family is living CC to CC, making minimum payments to make room on the cards, then using them for living expenses. "What do I do?" was the question and many of the answers were: "All cards but one at zero". This is like telling someone in the desert to find a shade tree to get out of the sun. It is not even on their horizon. This is a family whose best option was probably BK 7, but the parrotted "All cards but one, all cards but one" was the most advice they got.
Another poster asked, "How do I avoid AA". Again, replies came in, "All cards but one, all cards but one." So people who use this don't even listen to the question.
Another question recently was "What is the optimum number of cards to report" and one answer was "1". No further explanation. So you mean if I have 3 cards, $1k, $2k, and $10k, max out the $10k card and let that be the only card reporting, I'm going to optimize my score? Great! Sign me up!
The "All cards at zero but one" also puts the cardholder at risk, because they are not reporting balances to many different card companies and showing PIF activity. So, when the cardholder really does need to use the cards, boom, the card is no longer zero, the score takes a short term hit, the balance increases, and we've seen posters who started carrying balances and got hit with AA. Credit is a long term, complex relationship and "All cards but one" is a disservice to people asking complex questions who need to understand more about this complex borrowing system they are participating in.
YMMV but there are NO simple answers.