I've been thinking of refinancing my mortgage, but the credit bureaus have been slow to acknowledge that all my revolving debt has been paid off.

When I checked earlier this week, the score was "Good", but showed a ridiculously high total balance in revolving debt still owed. So outrageous, in fact, that I simply shut down the website and ignored the whole thing.

I guess for once denial was effective, because when I re-checked the numbers this morning, they were accurate and my credit score reflected the change. I called the toll-free number anyway, just because I wanted to ask a real live human what happened.

She told me that there is a quarterly review by credit card companies and other debt holders of customers' accounts and that results of those reviews are forwarded to the credit bureaus, and their accounts updated. What I had done wrong was that I had checked the numbers just before the update.

[Note how quickly additional debt gets recorded versus slow adjustment for payoffs--I'm not entirely convinced her explanation was accurate.]

You'd think with everything done electronically that updates could be done overnight (or once a week, if you were hoarding electrons). If it's automated, it doesn't need to be monitored--just set the process to notify a human if a glitch occurs.

Oh, I forget myself. Some are still thinking in terms of clerks on tall 3-legged stools, eyeshades and quill pens, entering information into paper ledgers.

Some (Luddites) would prefer it that way.