Personal Finance

Ask me about Credit Scores

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Mar 28, 2005
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Sternchen30890 wrote: But you get a small boost every month for making your payment?
That's not my experience.
Making every payment as required is the normal expectation -that will just keep your score where it is.
If you miss a payment, that will drop your score for quite a while and it takes time, with no missed payments, to recover.

I monitored my score closely since January of this year - checked every time there was a change in score to see what caused it.
The biggest positive change was dropping my utilization by paying off some accounts.
I have never missed a payment on any card or loan and that just kept my score the same
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Nov 12, 2009
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14 points drop in score on mytrueidentity.ca

The only difference from the day before is the change of date from May 31st to June 1st.

Thanks,
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youtube101 wrote: 14 points drop in score on mytrueidentity.ca

The only difference from the day before is the change of date from May 31st to June 1st.
Did you check every detail in your credit report including credit limits?
I have heard of some banks dropping CC limits due to COVID and not advising customers - that would increase your utilization and drop your score.
I just hecked my score like I have een doing every day since the beginning of the year - still the same as on May 31st for both TU and Eq.
It inreased by 5 points on May 31st because a major payment on one account finally made it into my report.
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Nov 12, 2009
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Yes, absolutely no change. I check every day and pretty clear on the latest balances and available credit limits. No reporting done from May 31st to June 1st.

In fact, I follow the AZEO method meaning, Only one of my three cards reports balance. I rotate the cards.

I am not worried though as it generally comes back.

.
krs wrote: Did you check every detail in your credit report including credit limits?
I have heard of some banks dropping CC limits due to COVID and not advising customers - that would increase your utilization and drop your score.
I just hecked my score like I have een doing every day since the beginning of the year - still the same as on May 31st for both TU and Eq.
It inreased by 5 points on May 31st because a major payment on one account finally made it into my report.
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Apr 16, 2007
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Financial District B…
Sternchen30890 wrote: But you get a small boost every month for making your payment?
Not necessarily.
Predicated on the age of your accounts your payment performances may just be maintaining a static status. Search my old posts for fishtank affect.
If you have 4 credit products and another person has 8 or 10. The person will 8+ will not necessarily have a better score than you even though he has to make more payments per tradeline (if he has balances on all).
Each tradeline has a max performance limit and each may be reduced or limited predicated on the amount of trades carrying.
----------------------------Licensed Credit Bureau member, S1, FI Automotive, CCP forums most banned = x 13 and counting, guess who that is?... stomped to the curb once again
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Jan 28, 2019
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krs wrote: That's not my experience.
Making every payment as required is the normal expectation -that will just keep your score where it is.
If you miss a payment, that will drop your score for quite a while and it takes time, with no missed payments, to recover.

I monitored my score closely since January of this year - checked every time there was a change in score to see what caused it.
The biggest positive change was dropping my utilization by paying off some accounts.
I have never missed a payment on any card or loan and that just kept my score the same
my broker told me to use the credit cards I have that I never use. Just a small purchase and then pay it off. Does this make sense? I only use one card right now and pay it off each month. The others I do not use because there is no cash back
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Apr 16, 2007
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Sternchen30890 wrote: my broker told me to use the credit cards I have that I never use. Just a small purchase and then pay it off. Does this make sense? I only use one card right now and pay it off each month. The others I do not use because there is no cash back
I'll make this easy... each and every card you have equals 12 payment performances per year. if you have 3 cards that equals 36 possible reported credit bureau payments.
If you store one of them in a sock drawer and never use it that means there's 12 payments that are not contributing to your credit profile.
Your broker understand the inner workings of how the credit system operates and performs. He will probably tell you too to cancel the cards you don't even use.
----------------------------Licensed Credit Bureau member, S1, FI Automotive, CCP forums most banned = x 13 and counting, guess who that is?... stomped to the curb once again
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Mar 28, 2005
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Your comment brings up two questions in my mind
mikeymike1 wrote: I'll make this easy... each and every card you have equals 12 payment performances per year. if you have 3 cards that equals 36 possible reported credit bureau payments.
If you store one of them in a sock drawer and never use it that means there's 12 payments that are not contributing to your credit profile.
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Mar 28, 2005
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Your comment brings up two questions in my mind
mikeymike1 wrote: I'll make this easy... each and every card you have equals 12 payment performances per year. if you have 3 cards that equals 36 possible reported credit bureau payments.
If you store one of them in a sock drawer and never use it that means there's 12 payments that are not contributing to your credit profile.
I have two of my cards that I have "designated" to use for balance transfers.
With a BT one obviously doesn't want to have any balance on those cards when doing the BT, so those cards have essentially been sitting in my sock drawer.
But with a zero balance for months now on those cards, those cards still show a perfect payment record for that revolving account.
Why would this not contribute to the credit score asfar as making payments on time as agreed to?
Would using that card occasionally boost my score?
I actually just started using one of these cards for four auto-payments beauseI was concerned that the bank might cancel it on me if not used.
Those four payments have not made it to my credit file yet - it will be interesting to see if it affects my score
Your broker understand the inner workings of how the credit system operates and performs. He will probably tell you too to cancel the cards you don't even use.
I think that would drive the credit score down for sure because it will drive up the utilization.
One of my unused "BT cards" has a CL of $29500, total CL I have is around $130K, utilization shows at 26%.
If I cancel that card I would expect my score to take a nose dive since my utilization would increase to above 33%
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Jan 28, 2019
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my installment loan (rsp loan CIBC) does not show on my credit report. Are they sometimes late reporting or is it possible it will never show?
I had a money mart loan a long time ago that never showed on my equifax. up until today (was paid off a year ago)
Member
Jan 28, 2019
442 posts
209 upvotes
mikeymike1 wrote: I'll make this easy... each and every card you have equals 12 payment performances per year. if you have 3 cards that equals 36 possible reported credit bureau payments.
If you store one of them in a sock drawer and never use it that means there's 12 payments that are not contributing to your credit profile.
Your broker understand the inner workings of how the credit system operates and performs. He will probably tell you too to cancel the cards you don't even use.
thanks
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Apr 16, 2007
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krs wrote: Your comment brings up two questions in my mind

I have two of my cards that I have "designated" to use for balance transfers.
With a BT one obviously doesn't want to have any balance on those cards when doing the BT, so those cards have essentially been sitting in my sock drawer.
But with a zero balance for months now on those cards, those cards still show a perfect payment record for that revolving account.
Why would this not contribute to the credit score asfar as making payments on time as agreed to?
Would using that card occasionally boost my score?
I actually just started using one of these cards for four auto-payments beauseI was concerned that the bank might cancel it on me if not used.
Those four payments have not made it to my credit file yet - it will be interesting to see if it affects my score
As I eluded to above and in some older posts (will ahve to look for them) a person with 12 revolving trades is not necessarily going to have a better score with a person that has only 4, predicated all cards for each person is used and payment made on each.
If you have reached the required payment scaling then any cycle payments on other credit products throughout the year do not contribute to any metrics.
krs wrote: I think that would drive the credit score down for sure because it will drive up the utilization.
One of my unused "BT cards" has a CL of $29500, total CL I have is around $130K, utilization shows at 26%.
If I cancel that card I would expect my score to take a nose dive since my utilization would increase to above 33%
Yes utilization would be affect but that all depends if you carry a significant balance or not. Lots of factors in play
----------------------------Licensed Credit Bureau member, S1, FI Automotive, CCP forums most banned = x 13 and counting, guess who that is?... stomped to the curb once again
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Sep 9, 2012
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krs wrote: Your comment brings up two questions in my mind

I have two of my cards that I have "designated" to use for balance transfers.
With a BT one obviously doesn't want to have any balance on those cards when doing the BT, so those cards have essentially been sitting in my sock drawer.
But with a zero balance for months now on those cards, those cards still show a perfect payment record for that revolving account.
Why would this not contribute to the credit score asfar as making payments on time as agreed to?

Would using that card occasionally boost my score?
I actually just started using one of these cards for four auto-payments beauseI was concerned that the bank might cancel it on me if not used.
Those four payments have not made it to my credit file yet - it will be interesting to see if it affects my score

I think that would drive the credit score down for sure because it will drive up the utilization.
One of my unused "BT cards" has a CL of $29500, total CL I have is around $130K, utilization shows at 26%.
If I cancel that card I would expect my score to take a nose dive since my utilization would increase to above 33%
To add to what @mikeymike1 said, there is a component of each trade line for "DLA" or "Date of Last Activity". You only have a perfect payment record on an account if actual payments are made.

An "idle" account will help your score by:
-- aging older accounts rate better than newer accounts
-- low/no utilization helps rather than being high utilization

However, that also means:
-- an idle card with no balance carried and no payments made means missing out on a positive impact to score from making payments and managing the account. Basically, making no payments because no payments are required is NOT the same as making payments as agreed.

Also, the scoring model looks at the DLA as it ages and at some point the account moves from being looked at as being "idle" to being looked at as being "inactive" whereby the positive factors noted above for aging and utilization are diminished. This is generally true across the board for all factors whether positive or negative meaning that more recent factors will have a bigger impact on scoring while older factors will have less weighting.
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CanadianLurker wrote: To add to what @mikeymike1 said, there is a component of each trade line for "DLA" or "Date of Last Activity". You only have a perfect payment record on an account if actual payments are made.

An "idle" account will help your score by:
-- aging older accounts rate better than newer accounts
-- low/no utilization helps rather than being high utilization

However, that also means:
-- an idle card with no balance carried and no payments made means missing out on a positive impact to score from making payments and managing the account. Basically, making no payments because no payments are required is NOT the same as making payments as agreed.

Also, the scoring model looks at the DLA as it ages and at some point the account moves from being looked at as being "idle" to being looked at as being "inactive" whereby the positive factors noted above for aging and utilization are diminished. This is generally true across the board for all factors whether positive or negative meaning that more recent factors will have a bigger impact on scoring while older factors will have less weighting.
I understand what you are saying, but that sure doesn't get reflected in my credit report I get from Credit Karma (ie TU) for instance.
If I look at the account I use the most, it shows a balance of $720.- reported on May 18. The statement date for that account is May 15 and I typically charge $2000.- per month.
The only reason the balance is $720 is because I made a payment on the statement date.
If I had ot used the cardbetween May 15 and May 18, that balance would have shown as $0, so how does the credit bureau even know if I used the card or not - they get a snapshot of my account once a month.
That account for that 18 May date also shows a payment of $20.-
I have never ever made a $20.- payment on that account, that doesn't even make sense with typical monthly balances of $2000.-
Digging back an forth looking through my statements for that account, the only thing close to $20. was a minimum payment due of $20.85

I also looked at a LOC I have.
That doesn't reflect actual payments either
The amount under "Payment" show the minimum payment due, the actual payment I made was about three times that amount which shows nowhere.

I suppose this could be a problem with the way CK interprets the TU information, but based on my daily tracking (and weekly reporting by CK), the FI only seems to report onea month regardless of the number of transactions on the account.
So if I pay off the CC balance on the statement date, it will always show "$0" as if I didn't use that card at all.

PS: This was actually suggested in this thread a while back - pay the statement balance right away so your balance is reported as $0 to the credit bureau.
That will artificially reduce your utilization and bump up your score.
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Sep 24, 2013
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krs wrote: I understand what you are saying, but that sure doesn't get reflected in my credit report I get from Credit Karma (ie TU) for instance.
If I look at the account I use the most, it shows a balance of $720.- reported on May 18. The statement date for that account is May 15 and I typically charge $2000.- per month.
The only reason the balance is $720 is because I made a payment on the statement date.
If I had ot used the cardbetween May 15 and May 18, that balance would have shown as $0, so how does the credit bureau even know if I used the card or not - they get a snapshot of my account once a month.
That account for that 18 May date also shows a payment of $20.-
I have never ever made a $20.- payment on that account, that doesn't even make sense with typical monthly balances of $2000.-
Digging back an forth looking through my statements for that account, the only thing close to $20. was a minimum payment due of $20.85

I also looked at a LOC I have.
That doesn't reflect actual payments either
The amount under "Payment" show the minimum payment due, the actual payment I made was about three times that amount which shows nowhere.

I suppose this could be a problem with the way CK interprets the TU information, but based on my daily tracking (and weekly reporting by CK), the FI only seems to report onea month regardless of the number of transactions on the account.
So if I pay off the CC balance on the statement date, it will always show "$0" as if I didn't use that card at all.

PS: This was actually suggested in this thread a while back - pay the statement balance right away so your balance is reported as $0 to the credit bureau.
That will artificially reduce your utilization and bump up your score.
If you download your free TransUnion credit report you will see that the balance and payments are shown each month. CreditKarma doesn't receive all of this information.

https://www.transunion.ca/product/consumer-disclosure
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krs wrote: I understand what you are saying, but that sure doesn't get reflected in my credit report I get from Credit Karma (ie TU) for instance.
If I look at the account I use the most, it shows a balance of $720.- reported on May 18. The statement date for that account is May 15 and I typically charge $2000.- per month.
The only reason the balance is $720 is because I made a payment on the statement date.
If I had ot used the cardbetween May 15 and May 18, that balance would have shown as $0, so how does the credit bureau even know if I used the card or not - they get a snapshot of my account once a month.
That account for that 18 May date also shows a payment of $20.-
I have never ever made a $20.- payment on that account, that doesn't even make sense with typical monthly balances of $2000.-
Digging back an forth looking through my statements for that account, the only thing close to $20. was a minimum payment due of $20.85

I also looked at a LOC I have.
That doesn't reflect actual payments either
The amount under "Payment" show the minimum payment due, the actual payment I made was about three times that amount which shows nowhere.

I suppose this could be a problem with the way CK interprets the TU information, but based on my daily tracking (and weekly reporting by CK), the FI only seems to report onea month regardless of the number of transactions on the account.
So if I pay off the CC balance on the statement date, it will always show "$0" as if I didn't use that card at all.

PS: This was actually suggested in this thread a while back - pay the statement balance right away so your balance is reported as $0 to the credit bureau.
That will artificially reduce your utilization and bump up your score.
The "payment" reported in the trade line is NOT the payment that you actually made. The terminology for payment within the trade line refers to the required payment that the lender asked for at that point in time. The R1, R2, etc and the times 30/60/90 late is what tracks whether the required minimum payment was made on time.

The data is reported as at a given date in time as a snapshot. The bureau has no idea what happens in-between each data dump. They simply refresh the current view of the trade line with the new data dump and move the data from the last report into the trade history.

So yes, if you have a nil balance the day that the data is pulled and submitted then the bureau has no idea how many charges or payments were made during the month.

That said though, the trade line data report would indicate that a payment was made as agreed and the bureau would increment the DLA (as opposed to if no payment was made because no activity took place in which case the DLA would not increment). The bureau doesn't know the activity level on an active account (only balance on the reported date + required payment amount + whether or not a payment was made), but they do know when an account is "idle" because no balance is reported + lender says no payment is required + lender says no payment was made.

This is how and why the tip of paying down on statement date lowers utilization and can help with bumping your score.
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Dec 12, 2009
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CanadianLurker wrote: The "payment" reported in the trade line is NOT the payment that you actually made. The terminology for payment within the trade line refers to the required payment that the lender asked for at that point in time. The R1, R2, etc and the times 30/60/90 late is what tracks whether the required minimum payment was made on time.

The data is reported as at a given date in time as a snapshot. The bureau has no idea what happens in-between each data dump. They simply refresh the current view of the trade line with the new data dump and move the data from the last report into the trade history.

So yes, if you have a nil balance the day that the data is pulled and submitted then the bureau has no idea how many charges or payments were made during the month.
When I look at what @buddshek posted, I see activity in the Balance, Payment and Terms columns.
Knowing this is CTFS, I'm going to hazard a guess from the "Terms" column that they had something on a no interest payment plan early in 2020. That monthly payment was in the $64 range.
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Sep 9, 2012
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ROYinTO wrote: When I look at what @buddshek posted, I see activity in the Balance, Payment and Terms columns.
Knowing this is CTFS, I'm going to hazard a guess from the "Terms" column that they had something on a no interest payment plan early in 2020. That monthly payment was in the $64 range.
Yes, I’d agree. It also shows that payments were made so I should update my earlier comments slightly in order to be more accurate.

In the trade line, the payment is the required payment or terms as shown on the snapshot. That’s the minimum required data reporting. It looks like CTFS is also reporting actual payments made so that the bureau does have that info on file, however, actual payments made don’t show up in the trade line. The trade line is only meant to be a high level snapshot.

Sorry - 20+ yrs in credit and several credit bureau projects but without current access to a recent bureau report some info is a little on the rusty/dusty side of the brain….
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ROYinTO wrote: When I look at what @buddshek posted, I see activity in the Balance, Payment and Terms columns.
Knowing this is CTFS, I'm going to hazard a guess from the "Terms" column that they had something on a no interest payment plan early in 2020. That monthly payment was in the $64 range.
I believe that terms is minimal payment (attached) but I think that your right about CTFS for the $74
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buddshek wrote: I believe that terms is minimal payment (attached) but I think that your right about CTFS for the $74
Jan 2020 - April 2020 shows terms $74 which would be for the item on payment plan plus other charges or a 2nd item on payment plan.
May 2020 shows terms $64 which would be for the remaining item on the payment plan.
June 2020 shows you paid off the item.

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