The Master $2 reporting "trick" explained

[Redlegs]

 

 

 

 

ttt

 

 

Unhappy Birthday!!!

 

You're over a week late!

I did this and my FICO scores went from 698>720, 707>715 and 714>721.

 

Nice!

 

What was your utilization reporting, and number of card reporting before only one reported $2?

 

 

I had 3 cards. One had a balance of $21 and the others $4 or so. My Equifax has gone up the most just at the end of February it was at 678 and now is up to 720. Onward and upward!

[mendelssohn]

 

 

 

 

 

ttt

Unhappy Birthday!!!

You're over a week late!

I did this and my FICO scores went from 698>720, 707>715 and 714>721.

Nice!

 

What was your utilization reporting, and number of card reporting before only one reported $2?

I had 3 cards. One had a balance of $21 and the others $4 or so. My Equifax has gone up the most just at the end of February it was at 678 and now is up to 720. Onward and upward!

If you had 4 cards reporting a balance, you didn't do this.

 

$2 (or small balance) on only a single card with the rest at $0.

 

FICO penalizes you based on the number of cards reporting a balance, even if it's $4.

 

Edit: nevermind. It looks like you figured that out.

Edited April 8, 2017 by mendelssohn

[Redlegs]

 

 

 

 

 

 

ttt

Unhappy Birthday!!!

You're over a week late!

I did this and my FICO scores went from 698>720, 707>715 and 714>721.

Nice!

 

What was your utilization reporting, and number of card reporting before only one reported $2?

I had 3 cards. One had a balance of $21 and the others $4 or so. My Equifax has gone up the most just at the end of February it was at 678 and now is up to 720. Onward and upward!

If you had 4 cards reporting a balance, you didn't do this.

 

$2 (or small balance) on only a single card with the rest at $0.

 

FICO penalizes you based on the number of cards reporting a balance, even if it's $4.

 

Edit: nevermind. It looks like you figured that out.

 

Now that I took a closer look it seems there's one more card with a $2 balance showing as well. That statement will close soon with a $0 balance. Hopefully it gives me an even better bump.

[Big Bear]

With a handful of cards, you're going to see 'dings' for having anything more than a single card report a balance. So that should certainly help.

[mendelssohn]

This discussion had come up several times recently, so I thought we would have a clear thread on this subject.

 

Who does this help? People with clean reports.

 

What does it do? It helps you eek out every point possible from the utilization portion of FICO scoring.

 

What do you do? Let $2 report on 1 card and have the rest report $0.

 

Why $2? Because you want non-zero utilization reporting on 1 card that is included in FICO utilization calculations. Experimenting with amounts lower than $2 has often resulted in the balance being credited to $0, so $2 is the smallest "non-zero" amount to use reliably.

 

Are there any cards that this won't work for? Discover is $3 minimum. They will credit $2 to $0. Cards over $50K are not counted in utilization and also do not count.

 

I verified all of this with BobWang via email. I'm not going to post the emails, but if for some reason that is not good enough, I will forward the emails to Breeze and let her verify the authenticity of this information.

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[shifter]

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[MP80]

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[PotO]

Has AmEx changed.  Lately the SOBs haven’t waived my $1 balances.