managing credit balance

[Hal Jordan]

Please provide something other than an opinion.. myfico.com disagrees with what you're saying So I would like to see some kind of article or website that even remotely agrees with what you're saying.

"Johnny paul told jamie jan that Richard Ray heard from Frankie Fick that he read a post by joelthecook on an internet message board that keeping a 15%balance is better for your score than keeping a $0 balance"..Is not a credible answer.

If what you say is true you should be easily able to find something published by one of the major credit bureaus or from a Consumer Credit attorney agreeing with you.

[Suffering from a Tax Lien]

Here's a reference which includes a quote from someone at FICO:

That said, a tiny reported balance can trump a zero balance. "In short, the lower a consumer's credit utilization, the better, but having a small balance is slightly better than having no balance at all," says Barry Paperno, consumer operations manager for FICO, the Minneapolis-based company that created the popular credit scoring formula.

I have observed it very clearly in my own credit score and seen references to it elsewhere. You need to be using your credit card, and a zero balance = not using it. Ideal utilization is between 0% and 10% from what I can determine.