Overall UTIL vs Individiual Card UTIL

Anonymous · ‎08-19-2015

I've read various opinions on this subject but I think I may have answered my own question... that is, if my CK Score can be trusted.

I have two very small cards that I am using heavily and paying off before the statement date in hopes for a nice credit step increase. I was on vacation for 2 weeks and was not able to pay one card off in time so a $270 balance showed on a $300 limit. My CK score dropped nearly 40 points. I have over $10k of overall credit that is at 0% util. but this one high util had a major impact on my score. Does FICO work the same way? Thanks.

Revelate · ‎08-19-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
I've read various opinions on this subject but I think I may have answered my own question... that is, if my CK Score can be trusted.
I have two very small cards that I am using heavily and paying off before the statement date in hopes for a nice credit step increase. I was on vacation for 2 weeks and was not able to pay one card off in time so a $270 balance showed on a $300 limit. My CK score dropped nearly 40 points. I have over $10k of overall credit that is at 0% util. but this one high util had a major impact on my score. Does FICO work the same way? Thanks.

In general CK scores cannot be trusted for FICO; however, FICO does penalize high individual tradeline utilization, but at 87.5% which I just did I lost substantially fewer points than that on FICO, and only dropped 20 on Equifax from CK for Vantage Score purposes. What was your original VS score? It's possible even under FICO that 90%+ counts higher than 87.5%, that's for a future test hopefully soonish test. Figure I can buy a Toto toilet for the new condo on my $500 DCU card and pretty much max it haha.

NRB525 · ‎08-20-2015

@Anonymous wrote:
I've read various opinions on this subject but I think I may have answered my own question... that is, if my CK Score can be trusted.
I have two very small cards that I am using heavily and paying off before the statement date in hopes for a nice credit step increase. I was on vacation for 2 weeks and was not able to pay one card off in time so a $270 balance showed on a $300 limit. My CK score dropped nearly 40 points. I have over $10k of overall credit that is at 0% util. but this one high util had a major impact on my score. Does FICO work the same way? Thanks.

You are gardening, why does it matter?

As Revelate notes, CK is questionable. Personally, I'd doubt 40 points in real FICO for this balance change, EXCEPT if the card was already posting zero balances. Going from 0% to 90% is a larger hit than going from 10% to 90%. Probably some FICO score drop, but you'll get it back when you pay the card down, and you know now to watch the statement date closer.

Was this card reporting zero for months, zero on the statements, and then just went to 90%?

Anonymous · ‎08-20-2015

Quote: You are gardening, why does it matter?

It really doesn't matter to me beacuse the multiple INQ's, new accounts, etc have taken their toll on my score and it's time to wait it out anyway.

I was just curious about scoring models. I was under the asumption that individual card util wasn't taken into heavy consideration, but rather overal util, and certainly not this big of a point drop.

And yes, the card was always PIF prior to this statement. Thanks for your input guys.

Anonymous · ‎08-21-2015

From my experience carrying a bal on multiple cards has a greater impact. For example I usually carry a bal on 2 of my 3 CC with 2 store cards not reporting. As an experiment I let a small bal ($35 or 1%) report on my 3rd CC. Overall utilization was unchanged but I received a 14pt drop on my TU score for my efforts.