Credit scores. It goes up when you have more debt and goes down when you pay your debt off, but it goes down if you ask for a loan and it goes down if you even try to check what it is.
It doesn't usually go down when you pay debt off. In fact, paying off all your credit card debt every single month is a great strategy that will get you a good credit score. And is ideal, because that way you avoid the high interest rates that credit cards have.
It also doesn't go down if you check it with sites like Credit Karma. I believe what you're thinking of is hard checks, which loan issuers use and they can slightly ding your score as they represent you about to get a new line of credit. Though honestly that part is pretty sketchy, since it applies even if you don't get a new loan.
I've got dings on my credit report for no debt lol. I get dings for not using enough of my credit limit and also for using too much. It's a stupid system that exists to measure how easily banks can fleece you.
It's not about paying it off, it's about closing an account. When you pay a loan off the account closes, and that's where you get dinged. Paying off a credit card isn't a problem, because the account is still active.
It's so stupid, in a state with a communist vanguard party a social credit system is unironically better since it marks a step towards a classless moneyless society that the American credit score system is antithetical towards.
Yes that's not my experience. It's a measure of how responsibly you utilize your debt. They like to see you use your debt. But they like to see you pay it off. They don't like for you to sit at a high percentage of debt. And they like to see that you've used your debt responsibly for an extended period of time
They want you in debt so you're forced to work, and so that they can grift interest money off you. According to their system it's irresponsible to not have debt, and it's also irresponsible to ask what their magic number is.
This person is passionately against something they have convinced themselves they fully understand without having any real idea wtf they are talking about. Reading his comments is reminiscent of my mother arguing to me that cost of living isn’t real, such pointless garbage and she gets upset unless you just nod your head and act enlightened somehow. Reading his comments, he’s convinced himself of how the credit rating system is bad, likely reinforced by misunderstood anecdotal evidence and other ignorant people sharing their anecdotal misunderstood experiences, or even made up hogwash. So much so that he digs his heels in and refuses to learn anything that would even allow him to form a valid critique against the credit rating system, preferring instead to be convinced he is infallible and enlightened while loudly spewing confidently incorrect bullshit.
Our credit system must work differently here in Australia, because the only thing I think brings it down is not paying, defaulting, bankruptcy, etc. I have an excellent credit rating and I've had debts for years.