Thanks for your reply.

Before I follishly did this my utilization was at about 46% and my equifax score was 728.
My goal is to keep the score above 700.

If this does not have a long term impact I can focus on paying it down over the next months. I had wondered if you would still be dinged after that like you would if you had late payments because for a time you were considered riskier.

My VISA people did increase the limit on my second request so I am pleased with that.
My main goal was to get a mortgage (summer 2010) and also don't want to show I have too much available credit because I know this too can be an issue.

I hope in the next 4 months (pre mortgage application) to get the utilization back to where it was. Under 30% is not realistic for me at this point but my old utilization (45% ish) is. I know I am dinged a little but my score should return I hope so that is the plan.

So right now I am up to about 64%... which is a 20% jump but expect to get down to about 50% which should bring me back to my old score(approx) minus the credit check which was just done.

I will wait to see my score go back past 700 before I make the application as I am monitoring.
It has not been impacted yet so I am not sure how much it will fall.
Also hoping my student loan payments have a tiny impact once they start being paid. Not sure how long that will take.

The account is open - but too new to report.

Utilization is the second largest component of your score. You have done nothing that is going to be of any major consequence in the future.

Unfortunately you are a victim of the retarded way we calculate credit worthiness. Obviously you did not become a greater credit risk simply because you lowered your limits but because the system is designed to be automated and based on an equation it is going to look like you ran your credit up to near the max. People who do that are statistically greater credit risks so even though you lowered your limits rather than maxed out your credit the system has no way of differentiating. It is just one of a few flaws in credit scores that works fine for the vast majority but ends up hurting someone who does something abnormal like you did.

The only way to fix this is to bring down the utilization. The easiest way to do this is to pay off the credit card and credit line. An alternative is to get more credit. Since you already tried to increase the limits on your existing cards and were refused this would mean applying for new credit that you don't plan to use. Applying for new credit though also has a negative impact on your score that generally takes about six months to pass.

Have you actually tried to go in person to the bank where you have the credit facilities that you requested to lower? Talking to people on the phone usually is less effective than going to the actual branch you bank with and talking to someone face to face. A lot of the discretion has been removed from banking but not all of it. In many cases stuff that I was told was not an option over the phone was possible in person at the branch. If you could get your original credit limits returned the problem would fix itself in one reporting cycle.

Your utilization isn't that bad if you got it down from 80% to 50% in a short period then getting it down to 20-25% is realistic for you and that will help.

I have some debt but I have always made appropriate and often large payments.

In 2008 I did my masters and thus my student loan was in loan forgiveness. Instead of taking out additional loans I used up most of my line of credit.

I also have a VISA with a line of credit of $28,000.

I always assumed I had good credit because I have no late payments and did not know anything further.

I decided to start looking at mortgages. From what I could tell of the big banks they do not want you to have too much available credit. If you complete an affordability calculation on their site it goes by credit limit rather than credit used. I decided dumbly to lower my available credit thinking it would be a good thing. I have since talked to a broker who indicated this was likely not necessary.

I asked the VISA company to bring me down to $10,000 and left my credit line at $15,000. Problem is this put me at 80% used credit.

I caught this the next few days. I called my VISA company and they said to bring my credit back up they would need to do a credit check. I called my bank about extending my line of credit - they did a hard pull and declined me based on my current expenses. They keep trying to get me to consolidate.

I called VISA again and got another operator who gave me $6000 back in credit - so I am about 63% used up.

The good news is I can pay this down over about 5 months and pay off about $1200 a month without using more credit so I can get it down to about the 50% mark.

I guess I am just curious about the long term problems this will cause. Can I assume it will stay with me after I decrease my utlization?

Another issue is my student loan account is "too new to rate." I assume it is because I did not start paying it back yet but I did pay it for years in its previous amounts. They renegotiate this every time you get interest relief however. Thus this loan is not part of the equastion. I wonder if it will also dock my score when payments begin in two months or if it was already docked when it appeared in 2008 and could increase it.

I have a car loan and a cell phone company reporting also.

My credit was - Transunion 783 (but they had an old open account which is closed.
Equifax was 728.

I would really like to get it up to the 700 mark again if it falls and wonder how long this could take.

Previous to this my utilzation was at about 46% so I am up about 15 - 20 percent with less available credit.