More credit = more score?

Racxie

Hi all,
Although I have a good idea of what I need to do to improve my credit score thanks to MSE Credit Club and the guides on MSE's website (and some experience), but I was curious for once to see what Credit Karma had to say: according to them (or possibly TransUnion who their credit score is based on?) having a credit limit of over £15k will help improve my score? This isn't something I've ever heard of or seen before so not quite sure what to think of it. Is it exclusive to Credit Karma/TransUnion? Or is this a hidden factor never mentioned by MSE? Or could it possibly even just be a cheeky (and unethethical) method or advertisement to encourage to take out more credit through one of their advertised partners? I always under the impression that having "too much" credit was a bad thing, and I never would have thought £15k would be considered a paltry figure...

Anyway I've added a screenshot below from the app (note sure how to resize it - sorry!)

[Deleted User]

Any of the credit scores you see from CRAs are meaningless and can simply be ignored. The 15k credit limit figure is nonsense. It's too much for some and not enough for others.

If you're having problems being accepted for credit, you need to check the data on your three files to identify the issue.

sourcrates

And would it surprise you to learn that credit karma are a credit broker, who take a percentage from every new card or loan they may sell you, sorry, persuade you to buy,  in order to massively increase the totally irrelevant credit score, no one see’s but you.
Think magic beans and your almost there.

eskbanker

As above, there's no magic science being deployed here but much depends on context - if your starting position was total available credit of £5K and total used credit also at £5K, i.e. 100% utilisation, then shifting to 33% utilisation would generally be seen as positive, if affordable.  On the other hand, if you carry no balances then it's (even more) meaningless....

DCFC79

Whether a limit of 15k will improve the score is hard to say but as mentioned your score isn't worth worrying about.

Racxie

Thanks everyone, appreciate all the comments so far

Deleted_User said:
Any of the credit scores you see from CRAs are meaningless and can simply be ignored. The 15k credit limit figure is nonsense. It's too much for some and not enough for others.

If you're having problems being accepted for credit, you need to check the data on your three files to identify the issue.

Although the thought of taking out a loan has been crossing my mind lately, I've not applied for any as I'd rather clear some of my debt first as I know that'll have a bigger impact on my score (my credit utilisation is quite high but all on 0% and I have no intention of letting it go above that). As for the actual "scores" I get that the numbers are meaningless and it's the actual factors which matter (e.g. I have a friend who has no credit history, isn't currently on the electrol register and is unemployed yet she has a better "score" than me  )

sourcrates said:

And would it surprise you to learn that credit karma are a credit broker, who take a percentage from every new card or loan they may sell you, sorry, persuade you to buy,  in order to massively increase the totally irrelevant credit score, no one see’s but you.
Think magic beans and your almost there.

This is one of the things I mentioned as a possibility and definitely one I think is the most likely! I get that there are different factors which an impact your credit score even on a small scale (like not being a home owner), it's apparently not a factor with other agencies and I'm sure Martin Lewis/MSE would have mentioned it having an impact by now... unless of course it's a factor exclusive to Credit Karma/TransUnion, but it just seems to suspect...

DCFC79 said:

Whether a limit of 15k will improve the score is hard to say but as mentioned your score isn't worth worrying about.

Yeah the "score" doesn't bother me but I know all the impacting factors are what's important and I know where to improve (at least according to the other main providers). This one just caught me off guard as I've never heard of this supposed factor before!

Grumpy_chap

@OP - I get that same £15k credit card limit recommendation from Credit Karma.  

Racxie

Grumpy_chap said:

@OP - I get that same £15k credit card limit recommendation from Credit Karma.  

Glad I'm not the only one at least  have you ever heard of it being a factore before?

D3xt3r5L4b

Racxie said:

Grumpy_chap said:

@OP - I get that same £15k credit card limit recommendation from Credit Karma.  

Glad I'm not the only one at least  have you ever heard of it being a factore before?

It’s not a factor of anything. 

[Deleted User]

Interesting that I don't have that on mine and only have £7k limits.

Agree with others it's useless anyway - £15k over 10 accounts is going to make you look desperate and do more damage than good! (and if you're only getting £1k to £2k per account, there's probably some other underlying reason for that - i.e. low income/adverse).

I remember Clearscore had one which said to hold 1 limit of over £2k/£3k (can't remember the exact number, I'm over that limit now so it's gone) -  I can understand why for that, as low limits don't look great (but in isolation, aren't a deal breaker). Trying to get someone to hold a total of £15k is madness and seems like unethical marketing to me.

On pointless alerts... I have an amber as my balances are "99% of the balance from 3 months ago" and I should try reducing by at least 10% every 3 months. Another pointless alert as my balances are £303 according to their overview (deliberately low due to mortgage app soon, and always paid in full anyway). 

I think these alerts are just to get you "hooked" so that you keep coming back and are eventually tempted to take out a product via them..... I'm now making a point of going via Topcashback/quidco (and if it's not on any cashback site, I'll just go direct!)

Racxie

Somerset_La_La_La said:

Interesting that I don't have that on mine and only have £7k limits.

Agree with others it's useless anyway - £15k over 10 accounts is going to make you look desperate and do more damage than good! (and if you're only getting £1k to £2k per account, there's probably some other underlying reason for that - i.e. low income/adverse).

I remember Clearscore had one which said to hold 1 limit of over £2k/£3k (can't remember the exact number, I'm over that limit now so it's gone) -  I can understand why for that, as low limits don't look great (but in isolation, aren't a deal breaker). Trying to get someone to hold a total of £15k is madness and seems like unethical marketing to me.

On pointless alerts... I have an amber as my balances are "99% of the balance from 3 months ago" and I should try reducing by at least 10% every 3 months. Another pointless alert as my balances are £303 according to their overview (deliberately low due to mortgage app soon, and always paid in full anyway). 

I think these alerts are just to get you "hooked" so that you keep coming back and are eventually tempted to take out a product via them..... I'm now making a point of going via Topcashback/quidco (and if it's not on any cashback site, I'll just go direct!)

Very delayed reply as I forget to check the forums on a regular basis and forgot I had made this post 

But yes, in hindsight I think one possible reason could be ways just to encourage you to take out more credit (through them no less), although I can also see a kind of logical argument for it e.g. if say you have £1k credit which you've maxed out, then you'd have 100% debt ratio which wouldn't be good. Taking out say another £1k credit would drop your debt ratio to 50% which wouldn't look as bad! So having £15k (which is pretty high for someone like me) would mean being able to spend a lot more while having a low %.

Of course though that's definitely not a sensible thing to do, but just another theory.