1 credit card over 50% and credit score

[iswmle]

Before I filed BK, I had about $130K in available credit in addition to the existing balances and was still getting credit card offers. Risk is a part of doing business for the credit industry. Senator Elizabeth Warren was once hired as a one-day consultant for Citibank. At the end of an hours long presentation to executives, she told them they could cut their bankruptcy losses by up to 50% if they stopped lending to people in financial trouble. Here's the reaction she received as described in "The Two Income Trap", a book by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter:



Predatory lending is profitable, even with the loses. It must be those late fees and high interest rates paid by people doing everything they possibly can to pay their bills, including raiding retirement funds, not to mention the fees retailers pay for every charge by people living beyond their means.

Hmm, interesting. This kind of explains to me Navy Fed's habits of throwing out 5-10k+ credit lines to people with the worst credit.

[LadyInTheRed]

Before I filed BK, I had about $130K in available credit in addition to the existing balances and was still getting credit card offers. Risk is a part of doing business for the credit industry. Senator Elizabeth Warren was once hired as a one-day consultant for Citibank. At the end of an hours long presentation to executives, she told them they could cut their bankruptcy losses by up to 50% if they stopped lending to people in financial trouble. Here's the reaction she received as described in "The Two Income Trap", a book by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter:

There were interested murmurs around the room, and several hands eagerly shot up. But before I could call on anyone, one slightly older man spoke up. He had been silent throughout the long day, leaning back in his chair and giving me a faintly bemused smile. “Professor Warren,” he began. The room hushed immediately, and I suddenly realized that I had been oblivious to the corporate pecking order; this was the guy who outranked everyone else in the room. "We appreciate your presentation. We really do. But we have no interest in cutting back on our lending to these people. They are the ones who provide most of our profits." With that, he got up, and the meeting was over. I was ushered out, and I never heard from Citibank again -- except to get my monthly credit card bills.

Predatory lending is profitable, even with the loses. It must be those late fees and high interest rates paid by people doing everything they possibly can to pay their bills, including raiding retirement funds, not to mention the fees retailers pay for every charge by people living beyond their means.

[TXskyblue]

I find it hard to believe that any creditor would give credit to someone with a BK on the credit report who could go bellyup on a total of $100K. I would tend to think that they don't want to see someone with a BK history be in the position where BK would be a big financial advantage.

I'm 18 months post chapter 7 discharge. My single highest credit card limit is $22,000. All together, I have just over 88K in credit card limits. I'm certain I could have > 100K in limits by the end of the day if I wanted to, but I am working on a possible mortgage refi at 2 years and do not want any new accounts or inquiries.

Credit is a gradual process. It was after 1 year of rebuilding that my limits really started to expand. It's possible.

As always, please be careful with credit cards. Mine are always paid in full and usually before the statement cuts. Owing money is something I abhor now. I can't wait to be completely debt-free (no mortgage or auto note) in a couple years.

[Logan]

That's the thing about BK, though. If you filed BK, you can't file BK again for a certain time period, which makes you a much better bk risk than most. That's why people in this forum gets tons of car loan offers--just discharged people make great credit risks for secured debt.

That said, OP didn't say when he was discharged or what his income is.

I'm over 7 years out of BK now so I could declare BK again. When I quoted the over 100K in credit available that includes CC's that I am an authorized user but factors into the utilization. We just applied for another Citit card in my wife's name and she was approved for another 9K. Even though it's her card which I am an authorized user it was approved using my income since she does not work.
It is pretty crazy how much credit I have available right now. It's actually somewhere over 150K. I don't need it and would close some of the cards if it weren't for the fact that it would hurt my age of credit history that's already under 4 years.

For the judgers out there, I use many different cards for the cash back.
Citi Double Cash for 2% back (we have 2. 1 my wife uses and 1 I use but are authorized users on each others cards)
Fidelty AMEX for 2% cashback
Chase Freedom for rolling 5% cashback
Chase Amazon for 3% cashback on all Amazon purchases
Capital One solely for International charges (I travel for work)
Lowes CC for 5% off each purchase
We have a few more for discounts--Tire Choice CC, Kohls, Old Navy etc....

We end up saving over $1500 a year by using these cards and they're all set up for automatic payments so I rarely have any issues. (just closed our Target Card because of an issue--can't remember the last time that happened. Funnny thing is my wife was pissed I closed it because of the 5% off and the fact she doesn't need a receipt so she just reopened the account)

We have a bunch of other cards that I wouldn't mind closing but my age of credit history would be wacked.

Logan

[avengers]

I find it hard to believe that any creditor would give credit to someone with a BK on the credit report who could go bellyup on a total of $100K. I would tend to think that they don't want to see someone with a BK history be in the position where BK would be a big financial advantage.

That's the thing about BK, though. If you filed BK, you can't file BK again for a certain time period, which makes you a much better bk risk than most. That's why people in this forum gets tons of car loan offers--just discharged people make great credit risks for secured debt.

That said, OP didn't say when he was discharged or what his income is.

[joshuagraham]

As far as utilization, I have around 100k available in credit ...

I find it hard to believe that any creditor would give credit to someone with a BK on the credit report who could go bellyup on a total of $100K. I would tend to think that they don't want to see someone with a BK history be in the position where BK would be a big financial advantage.

[Logan]

I ended up paying off the card that was over 50% and my transunion score on credit karma jumped 23 points. It's actually 4 points higher than its ever been. Credit Karma just started reporting experience and that one jumped 24 points.

Logan

[iswmle]

Same thing happened with my hubby. He had about 50% utilization on one card, and I let it report. His score dropped by 8 points. Paid it off the next month, score went back up by exactly 8 points.

Disclaimer: I was going off the score that was provided by this particular credit card and on CreditKarma. I thought it was interesting, but odd.

[LadyInTheRed]

It's temporary anyway.. time beats all. during the 10yr between both my chp7's I got back to 750's and kept very high utilization.. but because the cards had a built up long history it became a norm or something to the credit gods and my score wasnt really affected by the over utilization...

Don't be so sure. Maybe if your utilization hadn't been so high, your score would have been in the upper 700s or in the 800s.

[Dis0314]

It's temporary anyway.. time beats all. during the 10yr between both my chp7's I got back to 750's and kept very high utilization.. but because the cards had a built up long history it became a norm or something to the credit gods and my score wasnt really affected by the over utilization...

[Logan]

Ummm, not worried at all. Just curious. I guess you didn't read what I wrote?

Yeah dude, I just bought a car with a 40K loan at 2.29%. Not really worried about my score.

[avengers]

You say you're not worried, yet you start a post asking why it happened. Seems to me like you're worried.

I was just rejected from a $300 credit limit Credit One Card, even though my FAKO is 699 (I was discharged a week ago). You're way ahead of me as far as credit goes, so don't worry about it.

[Logan]

Worrying over 6 points seems pretty silly.

Ummm, not worried at all. Just curious. I guess you didn't read what I wrote?

[avengers]

Worrying over 6 points seems pretty silly.

[Logan]

It's both overall utilization and per-card utilization.

Thanks, I'll let you know if it rises as I pay it off. It was at 714 and dropped to 708. That's transunion through Cap One.