alexg said:
That may be why. Credit companies like to see a steady balance with only the interest being paid.
Not true. Credit agencies boost your score if there is a
balance that you can maintain at a small fraction of the total limit, not that you're only paying interest (which is a bad sign actually).
zoobyshoe said:
I heard once that merely checking your credit score makes it drop.
A "hard query" can affect your score slightly, especially multiple checks in a short period of time.
Ken Natton said:
Yes, paying off your credit card will not damage your credit rating but unbelievably, simply checking your credit rating will.
It depends, paying it off and
closing will hurt your score, but just paying off a card will help you.
@KingNothing:
I would request a credit report to see if someone is doing something in your name. There
are seemingly harmless things that can hurt you that you would be surprised of. A credit score, despite popular belief, is not a gauge of how little money you owe people. It's a gauge of how well you can handle credit. It is also a gauge of whether or not, if someone were to give you a new loan, the creditor will ever see his money back.
Let's say you have 4 credit cards totaling $25,000 of available credit. Let's also say you currently hold $5000 worth of debt on them. You're actually a good score because if someone were to give you, say, $10,000, they know you're a very low risk because you can easily use your available $20,000 credit to payback the creditor if need be. That's what the credit score is, a gauge of how risky it is to give you money. So there are a few possibilities.
1) Obvious one, someone might have compromised your identity, check this immediately
2) A false report might have been written for non-nefarious reasons, again check this
3) Have you closed any accounts recently? This would actually lower your score and companies do sometimes close accounts that have not been used in 6months/1year+ without telling you
4) Have your credit limits been reduced recently? Same idea
I know there are others and a quick google can find some finance sites that tell you about different things that can reduce your score.
As an aside, people who have never had a credit card or loan are often surprised that they can't get approved for a loan even though they feel they're responsible and worthy of credit because they've never had a credit card or debt in their life. Of course, to the creditor, the reality of the situation is that they've never shown proof that they're capable of handling debt and are thus, a high risk.
