     anonymous (Zcraws) | Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - 10:48 am 
on MY credit reports there are (credit card) accounts that do not specify my credit lines. The bureaus just list the high balance and the current balance. My question is, if part of your FICO score is based on balance to "available credit", what does FICO base the "available credit" on, with accounts that are listed such as the ones I have mentioned? |
| Shylock (Shylock) | Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - 11:09 am
It is based on your high balance if no limit is specified. Accordingly you may score very poorly if you have a $1,000 credit limit and you are carrying a balance of $200, which is the highest you've ever carried and they don't report your limit.
Unfair, really. But that's part of the point of not reporting a credit limit -- it makes your customers look like poorer risks and makes other companies less likely to steal them from you. |
| Lynn Whealer (Lynnwhealer) | Tuesday, August 15, 2000 - 06:44 pm
There were a couple of threads that I initiated a few months back concerning Citibank and its policies in this area. Having a fairly reliable contact at Fair Issac, I called and discussed this with him, and it is not as it seems.
Shylock, my conclusion was the same as yours, but there were at that time some changes coming in the algorhythms to account for the growing propensity of credit grantors to NOT report limits. Now who knows if those changes have been implemented, but the FI source is one that I trust....that is I trust him to tell me what HE knows as the facts, but that doesn't mean he has the FULL story. Do a search on "Citibank" and have a look at the thread discussions where my moniker is mentioned. We'll see. |
| Shylock (Shylock) | Wednesday, August 16, 2000 - 03:16 am
I have a Citibank Platinum Mastercard. Accordingly I am well aware of the problem. |
| Zachary1 (Drcredit) | Monday, August 21, 2000 - 03:38 pm
I would stick it to them. Charge up near the limit, sit with it, pay 3 weeks' interest, generate another statement, and then schlop off the high balance back to where it was. Just a suggestion, anyway. This will give you the "high-credit" that should be recognized by the scoring "software" (what a joke IMHO).
Hey Christine! You know the worst part about going to Alaska? You have to drive thru CANADA first! Welcome to Canada, from a Canadian,
Zachary. |
| Shylock (Shylock) | Monday, August 21, 2000 - 04:44 pm
Citibank doesn't report a high credit amount either. Accordingly I am leaving the card maxed out while I'm paying the others down. I realize that this is really just 'rewarding' their practice of not reporting my limit but I'm not sure of what else to do. I assume that if I owe $1000 on the card the credit scoring software will assume that my limit must be at least $1,000 and factor that in, whereas if I only owe $500 it'll figure my limit must be $500. |
| Zachary1 (Drcredit) | Tuesday, August 22, 2000 - 05:02 pm
So, in essence, what you are saying is that Citibank (Which bought out Canada Trust Mastercard BTW *&?%?&&&&?????, oh boy oh boy I can't wait) just reports the balance and the balance only so you got the software ratios at 100% no matter what you do? Seems like an outrage to me! They better NOT do that here in Canada, or I'll send the Mounties on their tail! |
| Daniel Tretola (Dant) | Tuesday, August 22, 2000 - 06:10 pm
I own a Citibank Mastercard (a dividend card, not that it matters) Here's how it is reported to the 3 reporting agencies-
Equifax- High Credit $5000
Experian - Credit Limit/High Balance - NA/NA
TransUnion - Credit Limit : $5000
So it would seem that it is reported to everyone except Experian (By the way the $5000 credit limit is relatively new, I asked for an increase to that amount back in May) Interestingly enough, the other accounts on my Experian report all have the proper credit limits on them. Hope this helps.
-Dan
PS if you notice, the High Balance is also NA, so therefore what Zachary suggests will not work. It will only increas your interest payments to Citibank. |
| Morty (Morty) | Wednesday, August 23, 2000 - 11:24 am
I am in the midst of trying to get citibank to report the credit limit to all three cra's.
The rep stated that citibank's policy is not to report the limit (no kidding?), and anyway, if they reported the limit, she continued, it would pull down my score because the available credit would go up.
She also added that they don't report any of the data to all three, only to TU.
If they eventualy report the limit to TU, how would I get the other two CRA's to get the info from TU?
Also, is the point she makes on available credit valid? I did hear that FI does deduct points for too much available credit, but is that a greater factor in the score than the credit limit/outstanding balance ratio?
P.S. I have an outstanding balance so the ratio is an issue. |
| Christine Baker (Admin) | Wednesday, August 23, 2000 - 12:50 pm
It would always be helpful to get these people's names and numbers. If they got lots of phone calls, maybe they'd stop spreading so much misinformation.
Obviously Citibank's reporting varies from account to account, probably based on the type of account.
To have too much credit lower your credit scores, you have to have a LOT of NEW credit. What's a lot? That depends on your overall file. If your current available credit is $5,000, and then you get 4 new credit lines totalling over $20K, I'd say that's a lot. Will it significantly lower your Score? Probably not. Definitely not for long.
As you can see from Daniel's post, credit line INCREASES don't show up as NEW.
If you do a Keyword Search for Citibank you'll find our previous discussions on this subject.
I think we eventually figured that Citibank's NOT reporting the credit limit would exclude the account from being part of the credit limit/outstanding balance ratio calculation. But I don't know that for sure.
Assuming the above is correct, whether Citibank's reporting the limit will help or hurt your Scores depends on how much you owe. Simply calculate your credit limit/outstanding balance ratio with and without Citibank. |
