Goodbye Chase, thanks for the crappy credit score
American’s credit scores have sunk to a new low.
NEW YORK – The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.
Figures provided by FICO show that 25.5% of consumers – nearly 43.4 million people – now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It’s unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.
Because consumers relied so heavily on debt to fuel their spending in recent years, their restricted access to credit is one reason for the slow economic recovery.
Perhaps lost in this article is the fact that many people’s credit scores are in fact lower because banks like Chase have gone and significantly reduced credit lines, with no reasoning, explanation, or notification. A reduction in a credit line to the outstanding balance creates a high credit limit to loan balance ratio which is bad for credit scores.
The fact that Chase doesn’t notify customers when it does this also makes it very likely that someone will use their credit card and go over their newly lower limit, thus incurring an over-limit fee. Thanks Chase.
Bad bad Chase | admin July 12, 2010
