It's true. It happened to me. I had two student loans that I had taken out back in 2001. I defaulted on both and eventually paid one of them off in 2012 and still owed on the other one. I wasn't able to apply for any financial aid because of the outstanding debt. The IRS garnished one of my tax returns earlier this year and got their money. I'm actually glad that they did because it allowed me to qualify for financial aid after returning to school. ... View more

That's one of the reasons I no longer let creditors know where I work. The employer that appears on my credit reports is a job I haven't worked at since 2012. ;) ... View more

@austinguy907 wrote: @Anonymous wrote: Every time I enter my information at Cardmatch.com I am pre-approved for the Simmons cards.  To be honest, I am not impressed with their cards.  I would use a Solid Waste Authorities Visa with a great APR before I would even try to obtain one of these.  The banks who are hardest to get loans from only care about themselves.  You have hundreds of other sources out there to meet your needs. It's called marketing.  Everyone is matched with Simmons, First Premier, and probably Chase/Cap1....      You know your scores have hit rock bottom when First Premier doesn't even appear as a match for you, Lol.    For the record, I'm NOT entertaining the idea of inviting First Premier into my life, I just find it funny that they seem to be keeping their distance from  me now. ;) ... View more

Congratulations! From here on out your scores should continue to improve.   I think my highest score was 678 a few years ago before crap happened that resulted in a lot of charge-offs. My current  scores are the most pitiful I've ever seen them; all of my scores are a few points below 500 (all in the 490 range). But I'm a very patient man, and by this time next year my scores should be approaching the 600 range. ... View more

For a long time in the past, Citibank was my 'white whale'. I was never able to get approved by them at any point during my credit journey. I may take a crack at their secured card next year and wouldn't be surprised if they denied me for that too. :p ... View more

Probably not a good idea for me to suggest this because it would be creating more debt and you certainly don't need that ;), but, since you're already in school, what about taking out a small student loan to help wipe out the smaller balances? A $2000 loan would wipe out the six items listed below and then you could close those accounts as was suggested earlier.    1. first national 350 limit 350 balance 2. first savings 350 limit 350 balance 3. surge 350 limit 350 balance     4. credit one 350 limit 350 balance      5. matrix 350 limit 350 balance        6. gettington 400 limit 300 balance           ... View more

Bloomingdales is so expensive that you'd probably max out the card if you ordered a pair of socks from there. ;) ... View more

  "- Based on your credit report from Equifax, there are too few or no revolving accounts. - Based on your credit report from one or more of the agencies on the back of this letter, there are too many new revolving accounts."     I'd love to send them a response letter telling them that they can't have it both ways and tell them they have to pick one. Either I have too few or no revolving accounts, or I have too many revolving accounts. :p ;)         ... View more

Ideal for me will be these three:   1. Discover 2. Citi 3. Visa/MasterCard from one of the other big banks     ... View more

Discover pulled TU for me in New Jersey. I wish they all pulled TU for me as my TU score has always been the most sensitive of the 3 CRAs; it reacts to every little change. EQ and EX barely move sometimes. ... View more

I REALLY hate thieves. :(   I'm sorry to hear that happened to you. I've been the victim of fraud twice.     The first time Chase called me because they noticed unusual activity on my debit card. A purchase was made at a Woolworth, a store I never shopped at. The charge was for around $35. Chase canceled the debit card and sent me a new one. The second time was much worse. While at work one day I received a call from B&H Photo and the guy on the phone was 'confirming' some information for an order I never placed. It was for a $500 camera being shipped to Los Angeles, I was working in New York. I had never shopped at B&H Photo before. I told the guy that I never placed any order, it's fraud and should not process the order. He said OK. After I hung up with him I immediately contacted Chase and told them what happened and asked them to decline any charges made on my card. They told me that I'd have to wait until the charge went through before they could do anything. The charge went through, Chase sent me a form that I filled out and faxed back to them. Chase acted like they would do something about it and actually did reverse the charges on my debit. But then later they reversed the charges again and I ended up eating the $500 charge.   Looking back, sometimes I wish I hadn't been so passive and had actually gone down to B&H Photo with the police and spoke to a manager there about the call I received from their store that day. Who knows whether that would've made a difference, but I feel that's what I should've done. ... View more

  @gdale6 wrote: @Anonymous wrote: I have a related question about Chase if anyone can change in or give their thoughts. I over drafted my checking account by $150 with Chase in 2011 and never paid it. My account was closed and I never paid the amount they never sent me any letters asking for the money and it was not reported to Chexsystems or EWS. I called them last year about it and they said my account was too old and they couldn't pull anything up. Eventually I'd like to app with Chase once I'm in the 700's (hopefully by then they'll have some branches near me there's no branches in the entire state where I'm at :( ). Right now I'm an AU on my SO's 2 Chase credit cards which both have flawless history (but high rates). My question is: Do you think my prior bad history with having a checking account with them will deny me for getting a credit card with them or the two are not interrelated? Because I have a friend who had $250,000 in his WF checking but had a thin file and only was approved for a 1.5k CL despite his relationship with the bank. No checking wont stop CC approvals, I bet they would find it if you opened a new deposit account and they would pull the funds.     Chase did that to me years ago. I had an overdraft on a closed checking account and a charged off credit card. I opened another Chase checking account as a test and deposited only $50 into the account. It was gone before long; citing right of offset. I just didn't know if the money was applied to the closed checking account or the charged off credit card.   They also tried to be slick and sent me a $40 check claiming some sort of accounting error resulting in overpayment on something. The local check cashing place didn't want to cash it so I just ripped up the check. No way in heck was I depositing it into my Fidelity account only to find the funds in that account frozen/emptied out a week later. :p     ... View more

I don't think NASA would be a great loss. Back when I used to have an account and a credit card through them, it didn't feel like anything special. I didn't really like banking with them and the credit card was their most basic card. ... View more

  No idea if they're BK friendly, but, years ago I applied and was approved for an account and a credit card when my scores were in the mid 600s.    ... View more

  @sarge12 wrote: Really...citi is harder to get than chase or amex? I would not have believed that.   In my experience both Citi and Amex were really tough nuts to crack and showed me ZERO love. At least Chase showed me some love by approving me for two of their cards way back in 2011. One had a low starting limit of $300 and the other had a starting limit of $1000. The low starting limits was probably their way of letting me know that they didn't trust my credit history but were willing to give me a chance (with safe starting limits) only because I was a longtime Chase banking customer.        ... View more

@grillandwinemaster wrote: No amex, citi, or Chase. But I do have Discover.   I'm guessing Chase would approve me, but I'm over 5/24 until  this Nov and I'm hoping to pull the trigger on Chase in January 2017.    Amex flat out denied me, citing my bk. I don't dare touch citi. To me Citi is the head cheerleader and Prom Queen all rolled into one. Not happening!   Lol, great description of Citibank. Yeah, for a while, Citi was kind of my white whale. At various points in my life I was never able to get approved for any of their cards. Once my baddies age off I'm going to take a crack at their secured card. If they still deny me I'll probably just close the book on them once and for all, lol.   ... View more

I check my credit report for that information. It sounds like yours may not  have been reported yet?     ... View more

@Absolution16 wrote: Please correct me if I am wrong on this....   You should ask yourself whether or not you are able or are willing to pay off your debt(s) in full.  If the answer is yes, then you have nothing to worry about, even with the lawsuits because you will pay the debt(s) off in full.   If, on the other hand, you are not willing or unable to pay off in full, then you may want to ask yourself, if you can afford to play the "wait it out" game.   What's important, in my opinion, is that should you engage the creditors/collection agencies in payment arrangements, you must be absolutely sure that you are gonna commit to paying off the debt(s) in full.  If you are NOT, you will only reset the clock on the SoL on lawsuits, so it is better that you don't touch it at all. My plan was to approach repaying the charge-offs in two ways. The majority of them are $200 - $750, while a handful of them are $1500 - $4000. I can easily pay off the sub-$500 charge-offs in full without entering into any payment plans and wanted to focus on doing that during the next few months.   With the larger amounts that are $1500 and up, I was planning to save up the full amounts before initiating contact with the creditors/collection agencies. No payment arrangements would need to be made because I have absolutely no desire to enter into any and would just pay each of them off in one shot and be done with them.   R A Rogers is the only collection agency I might not even bother with since they seem to be under the foolish notion that I owe them $6,031 on a charged-off credit card that maxed out at $3,213 when it was still with the original creditor. Talk about accelerated interest. So, I'll either deal with them last or not at all.   I can definitely play the wait it out game, I'm very patient and have been playing the wait it out game for several years so far, so, what's two more years? Plus, none of the creditors/collection agencies know where I relocated to or my phone number, lol. ... View more

Sadly that sounds like me back in my 20's and early 30's. I was young, foolish, and irresponsible. I became accustomed to having poor credit. But when I hit my late 30's I became motivated enough to start working on rebuilding my credit and improving various aspects of my life. The myFICO forums were a great resource that helped educate me and point me in the right direction.      ... View more

I'm pretty patient :D, I'm really in no hurry to improve my credit right now since I won't be in need of any credit products in the near term, and there are a bunch of baddies on my credit report that are due to fall off in 2018. 2017 is right around the corner and by the time I tackle most, if not all of the baddies, it'll be 2018. I won't be applying for any secured cards until a year from now.   I currently have 5 items in Collections (4 items listed on each report).  Midland Funding  ($303) NetCollections     ($620) Cavalry Portfolio    ($769) PORTFOLIO RECOVERY   ($2060) R A ROGERS    ($3212)   My plan is to deal with the smaller amounts first while also saving up so I can tackle the larger amounts later. I plan to deal with R A ROGERS dead last since they think they're cute with the way they doubled my charged off credit card debt of $3212 and are expecting to get $6031 from me. Dream on fools! :p         ... View more

Maybe give it more time. They might let you back in at a much later date or they may forever hold a grudge. ;)   2012 ended up being a bad year for me, and as a result, I ended up burning all of the credit card companies that gave me a chance. Looking back, I think I was very fortunate to get 2 credit cards from Chase, despite the low limits ($300 and $1000). Maybe being a longtime Chase banking customer helped me a little, I don't know. I was also very lucky to get in with Discover, who also gave me my highest limit card. When all of the baddies fall off of my credit report during the next 2 years, I'd like to take another crack at Discover with their secured card. I'm not even going to bother with Chase. It was tough getting my foot in the door with them before I burned them. I think they'd just laugh if they ever saw another credit card application from me, lol.          ... View more

I keep track by doing a mental checklist 3 times a month every month..   I know that between the 1st and 10th of every month I only have to make payments on my student loan and my HSBC Mastercard, in that order.. It's easy to keep track of two bills.. I submit payments to both on the same day (the 1st) and then move on to waiting for the middle of the month to arrive...   The middle of the month (11th-20th) is where it always got interesting. But ever since I rid myself of First Premier and paid off my Jared's account, I only have Macy's, JCPenneys, Discover, Best Buy store card, Chase Freedom, Amazon, and NASA Visa Classic to pay, in that order. Same as above, send a payment to all of them on the same day (the 10th).   The end of the month (21st - end) leaves me with only two cards to pay.. Funny thing is, I have a harder time remembering those two cards than I do the 7 cards I pay during the middle of the month. Maybe I should try changing their due dates to the middle of the month..     ... View more

Citibank...  It's the only card left for me to get in order to feel complete. :D ... View more

Whatever you do, take more than one credit card with you. Don't do what my boneheaded boss did and only took one card to Israel with him and got caught with his pants down when they declined his charge at a restaurant, lol... What a dolt he was, LOL..  His wife also paid the price for traveling overseas with just one card... I won't even go to the convenience store around the corner with just one card, LOL.. ... View more

@LS2982 wrote: I have other accounts that have 6 months of history right now (4 of them). others have 5 or 4 months. My FP card has 9 months right now. I also have a closed Cap1 card with same history as FP. I dont know AAoA wise if FP being closed will hurt me or not, but im real anxious to get rid of them now that I have a prime card. I'm really tired of paying them 11 dollars to make a payment too. i dunno i need some expert advice! help a mn trying to make it in the credit world! lol Holy krap, $11?? I thought it was $7.99 to make payments through their site?   Another possible problem of waiting for the card to hit the 1 year mark is that you might also have to deal with their annual fee.   I closed my First Premier account right before it hit the 2 year mark and before they came for their annual fee. My strategy was to overpay the account by $15.00 and then close it. That way I was covered if I got nailed by their $7.99 monthly fee shenanigans. They ended up sending me a check for the remaining $15.00... ... View more

My goal is to finally land that Citibank Visa/Mastercard that has eluded me for so very long and then go into PERMANENT gardening mode. I'll be doing a lot of growing and pruning.   And when I say pruning, I'm looking at you HSBC 2% Mastercard with your wallet-hurting annual fee of $79, $520 credit line and putrid $100 credit line increases. ... View more

I pay off the cards with the lowest balances first, that way I get them out of the way and can focus on the larger cards. ... View more

I got less than $500, Chase gave me a lousy $300 credit limit  to start with my Freedom card. BUT, the fact that they gave me a Chase Slate card with a $1000 credit limit a few months earlier means that I won't be looking that gift horse in the mouth and will just be thankful that they even approved me for a Freedom card, lol.. I'll just have to be a good boy and pay it off in a timely manner and hope they reward me with credit line increases. ... View more

@Anonymous wrote: OMG!!! After 3 attempts for CLI and got denied! Just right now I called Barclay again for Recon and a guy named Ryan gave me $1000 increase!!! Totalling $1500 CL!!! Barclay is AWESOME!!!! It really depends on who you speak with!! Now my Carnival MC has $1500 CL!! Me and my husband can now go to a CRUISE on our anniversary!!! Im so happy!! :) Merry Christmas to all and happy holidays!!! :) THANKS Ryan!!! :D  ... View more