Tanked my credit rating trying to stooze

Anthorn

TheNewGuy wrote: »

I have over time built up a stooze pot of around £5000 whilst my credit rating stayed steady; however clearscore and exqualifx have shown a huge drop recently. My report going from above average to poor/very poor in a month. My only assumption is this is because I maxed my out credit cards.

How can I fix this? Should I pay off some or all of my credit card debt? Would it also be worth asking banks in which I have large savings to increase my credit limit? They should know that I am not in trouble financially and the increase could look good.

Thanks

Yup maxing out your credit limit(s) does that. But whether the effect affects you depends on whether you want more credit. The usual advice is to keep below 50%. It's something that Experian is hot on and actually refers to it in their online credit report and score.

If you pay off some of the balance any recovery is likely to be very slow since the maxing out will be in the history of the account for 6 years. The other way is to get a new credit card and keep the balance low so your overall credit limit utilisation is lower.

planteria

agreed.. i wouldn't rush to do anything at all.
just keep things neat & tidy for a while, and, of course, always ensure that all minimum payments are made, ideally by Direct Debit.