My Experian FICO (from myfico.com) is up 31 pts. from 740 to 771. The only thing that changed was going from 8% utilization to 1%. 99% Available. I guess FICO does favor paying off debt. leencaci
Just be sure to keep that 1% on there. By GEORGE's admission, fully paying off your debt will drop your scores.
Way to go!! My overall utilization isn't bad, but I have a Citibank card at about 95% due to a 3.9% BT. That seems to hurt as well. One of my negative factors is always that I have one account over 90%. They don't worry about the other 20 or so that might be at 5% or less.
See my thread about "24 point hit"... My score dropped by that amount when I took a card to 95% utilization...and I got that 24 pts back as soon as I BTd to another card and got it back to 25%.
I have been getting my best gains by paying down balances. Even more so then the bumps from having paid medicals removed (My son had a kidney transplant 9 years ago, 35 down 2 to go). I paid down 7k on my total 23k cc debt in the last month and have picked up 27 points.
Well if this doesn't just SUCK!! The same accounts just updated on my Equifax and I show 1% utilization. (identical to my Experian FICO report that is at 771) Only I took a 20 pt. hit. Equifax FICO is now at 720 from 740. I give up! Time to charge the cards back up. LOL!
