Hi everyone, (I apologize if this has been asked somewhere else but I just read through 25-30 threads with "limit" "balance" "utilization" etc keywords and did not find the answer so thought I would post.... I've noticed the "high balance" on my Experian credit report. For example, it indicates one of my cards as $6500 credit limit, $6450 high balance, and 0 recent balance (paid off but still open). I realize that my credit limit was hurt when it was at $6450 of $6500 since this is way beyond the 30-50% utilization ratios commonly mentioned....but what about now? Does it even matter that it was almost maxed out? Or do they ONLY look at the current balance? I.e., the credit score dipped while at $6450/$6500 but then once paid off, did it rebound to exactly what it would be if I had not even touched the card? There are some temporary 0% offers and 4.9%-for-life-of-BT offers that I'm currently evaluating. If temporary high utilization doesnt affect the score once the cards are paid back down to 0, then I'd take my AT&T Universal Card with $11k limit up to $10k ... my AMEX blue at $3000 to $2800....etc. Thanks!
I don't think you get any extra points if they were already reporting the CL correctly. It's just us chumps who have crap(ital1) cards that only report the high balance where we have to max the card out to get them to report close to correctly in order to knock our utilization down (hopefully it works...there's a $2100 laptop warming my closet that goes back in 8 days)
As I understand it, your fico score won't be affected by the high balance at all. All it looks at is your credit limit and current balance. If someone was reviewing your credit report by hand, such as for a mortgage, they would see all three numbers. You'd have to ask someone in the business to know for sure, but I would doubt that having a high balance close to the credit limit would be a problem. HTH, Brett
but then once paid off, did it rebound to exactly what it would be if I had not even touched the card? OC8 ================= Probably not.
Well there are two reasons why I figure it might be a factor in determining credit score: 1. after all, it IS on the credit report (at least Experian's) ... seems like more likely than not they would take consider all information they track in determining the score. 2. it does provide some insight into the person's usage of credit, and after all that is what the score is all about. ....but this is just speculation. I'm curious if anyone actually knows.
Re: Re: "high balance" vs. credit limit Observations noticed in reading this board for the last 28 months.
