Anyone have a sense how badly it hurts you to have your High Limit (the max amount that has been on an account) be higher than the listed credit limit? I have a number of accounts...never late...but their high use/limit is higher than the listed credit limit. Anyone know how bad a hit this would create? Am I losing a few points for each account like this? Aiki
Its bad on 3 fronts: 1) Creditors doing an AR will notice this and jack your rate accordingly (if they have not already) 2) It means that your creditor cut your limit or you went over your limit 3) If you apply for new credit, they will almost certainly deny because of it. All in all, its a score killer, no doubt about it. Can you pay it off? That would help out a bunch.
Yes...actually. We're about to get our Christmas bonus...so we'll be able to pay all cards off completely. My current utilization is very high...about 96%. We tend to have few cards, all with low limits. I know this is tanking my score...so we're going to pay them all down to about 2% or so, which seems to be optimal (even better than completely off people seem to think). But my high limit vs. credit limit problem will still be showing there...obviously the only thing to do to fix this is wait for the balances to "post", then ask for credit increases for each so they will have a higher credit limit. I was just curious how badly these hurt. Thanks for the reply Aiki
Paying the card off won't change was is being reported. My own recent experience might help you: I have a CC which had a CL of $10,000 for some time. The high balance was reported at $13,094. I recently managed to get the limit increased to $15,000 and my score went up about 25 points instantly - I don't think this was due to the utilization changing as the balances were very low at the time, so guess FICO notices when the limits are exceeded and factors this into the score. Try and get your line increased above the high balance.
Yep..this is EXACTLY what I was hoping to find out. Someone that didn't have the other negative factors and somehow changed just that one. Thanks for your responses Neil!
And people were complaining about Cap1 showing high limit only, not credit limit - I guess in this case that would be positive!
I had this on one closed account from 1997. It kept my scores low, since it messed up my utilization %. My scores went up when I paid off the balance. I also had this on my Providian acct (still open) - it was killing my score, until Providian raised my CL, and then it didn't matter.
