Huh, I'll have to take a look at mine. I usually just do credit karma. My score has gone up considerably since the years where I was worrying about credit utilization percentages. I'm wondering if it has to do with how many other things you've got going on that also indicate good credit.

In other words, when I was just out of school with shit credit and student loans to pay back, they had very little data on me to determine my "worthiness" or whatever, so my only real option was to open credit cards and to use them maybe?

Maybe now that I've been consistently paying my shit back for decade(s), they don't put as much weight in credit card utilization %?

I wish I had a screenshot from years ago, but it was like the exact opposite. Like some "Your score is low because your 'WELLS FARGO N.A. XX86' credit card utilization is only at 11%. Please increase utilization of this account" bullshit. And all of the links they'd give you were about how you want to keep it at like 30%.

Maybe I'll go to credit karma today and see whats up. I hate credit cards, and I hate carrying a balance but it was drilled into my skull. My credit score is great right now so maybe I should just pay em all off.

Sorry if im rambling, I took a nice strong edible today.

Edit: Is it possible that the discrepency between the 850 and the 826 as reported by Chase (a bank) to be itself the "penalty" as you say?