Annoying 'credit score' calculation...

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Every now an then I check in on my credit report and score just to make sure there’s nothing odd going on. Anyway, I noticed something today that really annoys me. In short, my score went down a bit because, according to the credit bureau’s calculation, I’m using up ‘too much’ of my available credit. I know that’s not the case so I looked into it a bit further and here’s what I found:</p>

<p>The score is being cut down because the credit bureau says that I’m using 75% of my available credit limit for my primary credit card… except that’s not true. Turns out that the fine print says that they don’t know what the credit limit on this card is so they’re using the ‘highest recorded balance’ as my limit (so essentially they don’t know so they just make something up). </p>

<p>Anyway, this card current has a limit of $15k and in an average month I charge about $2-3k on it between various personal and business expenses… so I’m nowhere near the credit limit on this card. Furthermore, I always pay the balance off in full every month so I don’t pay any interest. So in reality I’m nowhere near maxing out this card (never mind that it’s paid off in full each month) but the credit score is being calculated on the basis that I’m using 75% of the ‘limit’ (again they admit they don’t know the limit so just made one up based on average usage). If I really was using 75% of my limit each month I could see them docking my score… but I’m not. </p>

<p>Needless to say I’m very annoyed as they’ve knocked about 40 points off my score for this over the last few months. I’m not looking to make any major purchases, but I’m just sort of annoyed that these shady credit bureau’s are out there spreading false information about me simply because they can’t be bothered to admit that they don’t actually have the data needed to perform the calculation they want to perform.</p>

<p>Is there anything I can do about this? Can I get the credit card company to give them the actual limit on the card or inform the credit bureaus that their info is wrong and ask them to correct my report? </p>

<p>Generally having a large limit card which you charge small amounts to and pay off each month would be considered a good thing for your credit report, but in this case it’s hurting me since they don’t seem to care about using accurate data…</p>

2

<p>“Vee haf vays of dealing with credit card overchargers like you.”</p>

<p>I can offer only sympathy. Tilting at windmills just isn’t my thing.</p>

3

<p>I recently got a notice that one of my credit cards was reducing my spending limit. Since it was about 10X what I have ever spent, I’m not too concerned, but it is yet another indication of the basic sliminess of the whole business. (We always pay the full balance on time.) Basically they can change the rules whenever they want for completely arbitrary reasons.</p>

4

<p>I had a (former) insurance company try to raise my car insurance rates because I was using too much credit. But we, too, have an obscene amount of credit not used. Like several cards with $25+K limits. Couldn’t figure it out. Changed companies. Now I see that they don’t always see what’s there. What a racket.</p>

5

<p>We are in the process of renewing our mortgage (the rates are great BTW) and just found out that the bank is checking my credit record with 3 (three!) different companies! What is even more bizzare, my numbers differ by good 70 between them! With one I am making the highest score available while the other puts me barely at the excellent level! Go figure!</p>