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My journey from my BK (work in progress)

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Anonymous
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My journey from my BK (work in progress)

Failed business and divorce kind of forced my hand to BK. Not a fan, but such is life lol. Little background, I had garbage credit from being a dumb 18year old like a lot of folks, when I met my future ex-wife (haha) she was sporting like a 730-740ish so my 530ish was dragging us down. 5-6 months of report disputing since most of my negative stuff was 5+ years old, I actually passed her and had around a 760ish. Blah blah 9 years later, failed business divorce, chap7 BK happened.

 

Just was discharged in early July. Preface with I am extremely familiar with min/maxing scores due to my previous stint at personal credit repair, as well as loads of reading including these forums and folks who have been through similar situations.

 

Few days after discharge, CreditKarma says I am a healthy 534 TU and 524 EQ.(lol) Little hope in getting one, but figured it wasn't going to hurt too much, I app for Cap1 QS, expecting a denial and that I'd have to go the secured route through NFCU. much to my surprise, boom...$1000 limit, I'm pumped so I app for a couple more low key cards, BP, Best Buy NFCU unsecured... unfortunately denied on all other fronts lol. I snag a $500 secured card with NFCU and open a 24mo/$2000 credit builder loan with a local CU. This was opened because the auto loans weren't reporting for the first 6 weeks and I wasn't sure if the local CU was going to put them back on my file. Either way, not hurting anything....instead of it going into my "rainy day" savings, it's just going here.

 

So basically time line for anyone who cares...

 

July 2016

- discharged CH7

- 534/524 TU/EQ

- $1000 Cap1 QS

- $500 NFCU secured 

- $2000/24 mo installment

- reaffirmed 2 auto loans as well through the BK

 

August 2016

- Bad utilization on cards, but making larger payments

- 1st payment on credit builder loan

- 625/625 TU/EQ (assuming the auto loans reporting again helped the nearly 100pt boost)

 

Plans: 

- relaxing and paying for the next 4-5 months, planning on running that Cap1 card up and down as hard as I can manage lol

- Going through my report and making sure everything is IIB and/or removed. I know there are a few things that need to be removed still so should get a few pity points back for it.

 

Any specific words of wisdom from the Masters here? Contemplating going for a 2nd QS in 2-4 months, they've been sending me 3-4 preapproval offers a week haha, but not sure that that will do a whole lot for me, except that they seem "upgrade" friendly so I can turn it into something else later in life and/or combine the limits eventually. Any other cards I should be eyeballing instead?

 

Otherwise my real questions... 6-7 months from now which is the NFCU card I should be applying for? Flagship, platinum something different? Apply for their overdraft protection line of credit? Barclay's? Or a different Cap1? When if ever should I harass store cards again such as BP or Amazon or something?

 

Anything overall I am missing currently that I should shoot for or any next steps I might be missing?

 

Thanks in advance and thanks in retrospect for the advice on which cards to hit and to get in bed with NFCU, had that in place and ready for when the discharge papers hit lol

 

Message 1 of 4
3 REPLIES 3
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: My journey from my BK (work in progress)

Moreso for **bleep**s and giggles, grabbed an Overstock and Fingerhut account for $250 and $500 respectively. Amazon sent me a 7-10 letter so assuming Sync doesn't want to play, was hoping the added accounts and score boost might change their mind but I was wrong...meh.

 

Overstock I use from time to time, but never heard of Fingerhut and mostly regretting the impulse line after looking over their website prices lol. Are either worth attempting tio utilize or did I waste my time?

 

I had a newegg account prechange over to Sync, and don't remember how well (if at all) it reported due to my sporadic use of the account. Was mostly just there for when I bought computer stuffs every 2-3 years to use 12mo no interest financing. After I boosted to 740+ I really stopped paying attention to the min/max game, just made sure to make payments on time.

Message 2 of 4
jmclaughlin1982
Established Member

Re: My journey from my BK (work in progress)

That's a LOT of info. Lol
As for cap 1. Use the card "hard" as you say and make sure to stay up to date. They like to see low utilization and high usage. After a few months request cli. Just went from $500-750 on husbands QS!
Love credit builders! I grata. Might be worthwhile to see about a traditional secured too. Much lower interest and is just basically a way of saving and stashing money away.
Congrats on Overstock! Fingerhut is EXPENSIVE! Find something not too high (I bought a toaster) and buy. Pay it off in full. Do this 2-3 times then just leave it. Within a few months they should double or even triple your limit. Buy something small again and pay it off and you're all set!
After a few months of rebuild you might want to try Barclays. I got denied due to insufficient credit history, no mention of the BK at all! Nice lady at recon line told me to try back after getting 1-2 more trade lines. I have 5 TL's now and just gardening til I can get Barclays!
One quick not about Cap 1. They instituted a new policy a bit ago, one new account every 6 mos. So if it hasn't been 6 mos from approval done even bother. Try the pre qualifier and see if it comes up with anything. From what I've seen the pre qualifier is pretty accurate.
Hope this helps, keep us updated!
BK7 filed 3/23/2016 DC 6/20/2016


Current Credit
Ally Auto-$17000| Credit Builder Loan-$1000| Secured Loan-$1000| Cap 1 Secured-$400| Kohl's-$300| Milestone-$300| Gettington/Webbank-$500

AU- Chase Freedom-$500| Cap 1 QS-$500| Amex-$2000| Walmart-$910| Target Card-$300| Kohl's-$300| Credit 1-$300
Message 3 of 4
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: My journey from my BK (work in progress)

Well not an exciting update. Car notes hitting now turns out the ex wife hasn't been paying hers well so my score took a pretty decent dip...CU says if we reregister the car out of each other's names hers will fall off my report but that doesn't seem accurate frol what I understand.

Credit builder loan and both CCs are reporting on my Credit Karma profile now but not showing any payment history yet so my score is almost as bad (almost worse) than after the BK was discharged lol.

Allegedly the credit builder loan is being reported as just a personal loan at like 3.5% interest or some like that so not overly worried there right now.

Haven't used Fingerhut nor overstock yet, thinking about just buying some smaller $20-50 things to get them reporting since I did use the inquiries opening them and positive trade lines are good to have.

Disputed reports will be on their way here probably this weekend if I can carve out some time to sit down with a highlighter lol so ideally in a few months I'll be in a position to try for a Barclays or a real NFCU card.


Question. Was going through my report and the notes on my profile, we had CitiBank, BoA and AMEX cards with the wife as the primary and I didn't know until now I was just am authorized user.... they're showing on me as "closed" or "closed by consumer" with perfect payment history and no mention of BK or charge off. Is there anyone with experience that can elaborate slightly if they're worth trying for sooner rather than later or will their underwriting department see that the account i had with perfect payment history that was closed by consumer was attached to the ex who actually took them down or that we legitimately paid down/closed out the accounts. Or are any of those 3 overly sensitive to me having a BK on file?

Reporting on me:
BoA: $5000 limit, 8 year history, perfect payment history. Not taken down in the BK

Citi: $6100 limit. 7 years history, perfect payments. Wife was primary and took them down for about $3500, but my status shows clean. "Closed due to inactivity"

AMEX: $2000 limit, 6 year history, perfect payments, "Closed by consumer"


Long and short is if I "trick" or "boost" my score properly is it worth leap frogging into any of these or should I just stay the course and aim for a Barclays and/or unsecured NFCU as my main priorities?

Thanks!
Message 4 of 4
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