Understanding Fico Scoring System

[Maxi11510]

Hello Community, 

i need help help with understanding fico scores. I plan to pay off all of the balances on my credit cards within the next 30 days with the hopes of having a major increase with my score. However, I have read that so many members have had their fico scores drop for paying off their balances. So I am requesting advice from the community on how to proceed. Should I pay odd these balances as I have high utilization which is hurting my already low score as I do not wish to further damage it by paying off the balances. Please help

[Anonymous]

This is arguably the #1 covered topic on this forum so with a little seaching you'll find tons of detailed info.

To give you a quick recap of what you'll find, though, assuming you have the money to pay off everything as you suggested in your post, pay off ALL BUT ONE of your credit cards, and that last one just leave a small balance... $5, $10, whatever.  By doing this you will show CC utilization still (which is what you want or you lose points) but it will be the smallest amount of utilization which will yield you the greatest amount of points.