Alert! Check your credit reports for incorrect credit limit reporting! 

One of the dirtiest tactics used by credit card issuers—to prevent competitors from offering you competing credit cards—is reporting no credit card limit to the credit bureaus. Since 30% of your credit score is credit utilization, this hurts your score considerably.

How? When no credit limit is reported for a credit card account, it means if you charge $1.00 on that card, you are instantly over the credit limit. If you charge $1,000, you are way over the limit. See the problem? High utilization lowers your score drastically.

If you find no credit card limit being reported, you must contact the credit card company and the credit bureau. Get them to report your correct credit limit. Once updated, you will see your credit score increase significantly.

American Express and Capital One are known for using this dirty tactic. If you have either of these credit cards, you need to get a copy of your credit reports and verify your credit limit is being reported correctly. Unfortunately, they are not the only ones to use this dirty trick.

Consumers beware! Monitor your credit.