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Utiliization goes up and so does score

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nycfico
Regular Contributor

Utiliization goes up and so does score

How can it be that my utilization goes up, by about 30%, and I take a card from $0 to $750 balance, and the day that reports, and nothing else reports, my equifax fico score actually goes up a point, from 636 to 637?

 

Obviously one point is close to meaningless but still in trying to figure out how FICO scores work, how can what can't possibly be seen as a positive event actually help my score?

 

I know Fico is complicated.  But this is more a question of why would a score sit there unchanged UNTIL something like this and it actually rises?

Message 1 of 5
4 REPLIES 4
tufa4311
Established Contributor

Re: Utiliization goes up and so does score


@nycfico wrote:

How can it be that my utilization goes up, by about 30%, and I take a card from $0 to $750 balance, and the day that reports, and nothing else reports, my equifax fico score actually goes up a point, from 636 to 637?

 

Obviously one point is close to meaningless but still in trying to figure out how FICO scores work, how can what can't possibly be seen as a positive event actually help my score?

 

I know Fico is complicated.  But this is more a question of why would a score sit there unchanged UNTIL something like this and it actually rises?


Were all your cards at 0% before the jump to a $750 balance? If you were at 0% UTIL across all your reporting cards that's not a good thing, you loose points for that. (and 1 point isn't close to meaningless, it is meaningless)

796 TU FICO 08 (08/2018)
758 TU FICO 08 (01/12/2016)
753 TU FICO 08 (11/21/2015)
740: EQ Score Power (Beacon 5.0) FICO 04 (01/23/2015)
755 TU FICO 08 (01/21/2015)
652 TU Lender Pull (06/10/2014)
665 TU FICO 08 (05/21/2014)
Goal: 800+
Message 2 of 5
NRB525
Super Contributor

Re: Utiliization goes up and so does score


@nycfico wrote:

How can it be that my utilization goes up, by about 30%, and I take a card from $0 to $750 balance, and the day that reports, and nothing else reports, my equifax fico score actually goes up a point, from 636 to 637?

 

Obviously one point is close to meaningless but still in trying to figure out how FICO scores work, how can what can't possibly be seen as a positive event actually help my score?

 

I know Fico is complicated.  But this is more a question of why would a score sit there unchanged UNTIL something like this and it actually rises?


Your utilization went up by 30% from what it was before, right, it did not go TO 30%?

The $750 is the 30% change in Utilization, so your $ in Total Utilization went from $2,500 to $3,250?

What are your total CC Credit Limits? If your credit limits are anything over $35,000 on all cards, then you still aren't at 10% of overall utilization. Your scores at 636 indicate you are coming back from negatives, so showing reasonable borrowing on a new card and keeping total utilization in check is a good thing. A small good thing, but good nonetheless.

High Bal Jan 2009 $116k on $146k limits 80% Util.
Oct 2014 $46k on $127k 36% util EQ 722 TU 727 EX 727
April 2018 $18k on $344k 5% util EQ 806 TU 810 EX 812
Jan 2019 $7.6k on $360k EQ 832 TU 839 EX 831
March 2021 $33k on $312k EQ 796 TU 798 EX 801
May 2021 Paid all Installments and Mortgages, one new Mortgage EQ 761 TY 774 EX 777
April 2022 EQ=811 TU=807 EX=805 - TU VS 3.0 765
Message 3 of 5
nycfico
Regular Contributor

Re: Utiliization goes up and so does score

Actually my utilization went from 40% to 70%. And still the one point increase. I realize again that this is a trivial move, but I still don't get it.

Next month I'm going to shoot for a 5% utilization and see what happens.
Message 4 of 5
NRB525
Super Contributor

Re: Utiliization goes up and so does score

Well, it's still only a $750 move in total outstanding balances. Not a large amount in todays credit world.

It is possible that at the same time you got a hit for the utilization increase, a benefit for another month of positive payments came in which just outweighed the utilization by 1 point positive.

High Bal Jan 2009 $116k on $146k limits 80% Util.
Oct 2014 $46k on $127k 36% util EQ 722 TU 727 EX 727
April 2018 $18k on $344k 5% util EQ 806 TU 810 EX 812
Jan 2019 $7.6k on $360k EQ 832 TU 839 EX 831
March 2021 $33k on $312k EQ 796 TU 798 EX 801
May 2021 Paid all Installments and Mortgages, one new Mortgage EQ 761 TY 774 EX 777
April 2022 EQ=811 TU=807 EX=805 - TU VS 3.0 765
Message 5 of 5
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