• WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    One caveat. You do get dinged on your credit score if you are too responsible with your credit. You get dinged if you don’t carry a balance on your credit card. Credit reports ultimately rate how profitable you are to lenders, not how responsible you are with credit.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      One caveat. You do get dinged on your credit score if you are too responsible with your credit.

      Untrue. I’m in the 800s, and all I did was consistently pay off my everyday-use credit cards every month.

      You get dinged if you don’t carry a balance on your credit card.

      Absolutely false:

      Carrying a balance on a credit card to improve your credit score has been proven as a myth. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says paying off your credit cards in full each month is the best way to improve your credit score and maintain excellent credit for the long haul.

      Credit reports ultimately rate how profitable you are to lenders

      No they don’t, or else I, who has literally only profited off my credit cards via the combination of never paying interest, and utilizing cash back rewards from regular use, wouldn’t have a credit score in the 800s.

      not how responsible you are with credit.

      Explain my 800s score, then. They’re making literally negative profit from me.

      If someone has one credit card that’s always maxed out, and while they’re always making payments on time, they’re minimum payments, so they’re accruing essentially the most interest they could possibly be accruing, I guarantee that person’s credit score is much worse than mine, even though there is no arguing that this hypothetical person generates way more revenue for the credit card provider. That refutes your assertion from the other direction.

      And that’s without even mentioning how significant a negative influence 100% utilization has on the score.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        No, you are incorrect.

        This is a screenshot directly from a credit report disclosure from a current mortgage application. This type of credit report is much more accurate than the ones you get from a free site, as they are the version of the credit report actually used by a mortgage lender.

        I do the same strategy you do. We don’t carry a balance on our cards. Usually the only debt we have is our mortgage. And yet, clear as day, the credit report disclosure clearly indicates that our score took a hit because we don’t carry a balance. I also have a plus 800 credit score, but it would be higher if I made a habit of paying the bank lots of interest income.