I truly am excited to be a part of this forum. I have read hundreds of the topics and I truly feel credit wise because of your collected knowledge. With that being said, I let the greed out of me when I went app crazy. Here’s what happened.
Back in the day (March of 2015) I bought a car without knowing much about credit and was super shocked when the finance manager offered me a 14.4% interest rate. I was pretty upset, but I really wanted the car…and they knew it. (History note-I have had 4 car loans, never missed a payment) Came to find out that my score was a 605. Not wonderful. A month later I applied for and received a Credit One Visa at a $600 limit. I was foolish a year ago, I had that thing maxed out in two months, on top of my maxed Capital One Platinum at a $2250 limit. (History note-I have had this one for about 4 years, started out with $600 and grew to $2250) I got serious about my financials, well sort of, when I learned about Credit Karma in June of 2015. I started verifying, making corrections, disputing false information, but I did not lower my credit card usage. In doing all of these actions, I did have a score increase over time, then I finally figured out what I really needed to do.
In December of 2015, starting with a 620 score, I proclaimed that I was to be debt free in two years. That includes my student loans that I have been paying on for the last ten years (no missed payments) of which I owe $3388, I want to get my credit debt taken care of $2,500, and my car for $24,000. LOTS of hard work to make this happen, but the hard work pays off in the result of a better credit score!
Action plan: Pay off as much of the credit card debt as quickly as possible. I am still working on such things currently with huge payments on the credit card, as often as possible. My largest payment was $1,300. But I was still using the card also, so my balance actually was not going down by much. Because of this, I was offered to upgrade the card to the Quicksilver One, and they bumped my limit to $4,250. A nice $2,000 increase! THIS time, I did not rack it up, still working on paying it off! (BUT WAIT, Cap One has only reported this increase as of today (4/21/15), so the CLI did not help my score at this time.)
Here is the embarrassing stuff, but I feel like there are readers that are in my situation; Without being too specific on the individual Credit Burrous, I had two tax liens(2010, 2012) , a judgment (2009), seven late payments on that Capital One card that I have been speaking of (last late 2.2 years ago), an old Best Buy card that was defaulted on with missed payments reported (was in 2013). Bad stuff yes, but they are in the past and they are all PAID and marked as paid on all credit reports (this took some time). In the case with Experian, they have removed one lien and the judgement completely. That was unexpectedly awesome. Working my reports, I was able to raise it about 20 points per month.
Next part of the story….myFico. I found you guys last month and I never have looked anywhere else for advice since. I started with my paid subscription, and got to see my real scores vs Credit Karma. I was sitting at a 674, 677, and a 687. I was very pleased with these numbers due to the fact that my credit report has so much negative information in it. So I studied the site for about a month, and thought, what the heck, I’ll check my prequalified offers through the major credit card companies and see what happens…I checked about once a week and saw more and more offers online, so I knew my credit report has become stronger in the creditor’s eyes.
I made a decision. Was it a good decision? I will say yes, if I can say no to overusing my yet to be explained spending power. I applied with Capital One first since we already have an established relationship and due to the fact that they have recently upgraded my card and gave it a CLI. Drum roll…I app’d for the Quicksilver…I was scared..my heart was racing, it was the longest minute ever! $10,000!!! NO FREAKIN’ WAY! So yes…a $850 Credit One card, and a $4,250 QS1 card, sits next to my new $10K card. It’s nearly laughable. NOW, here is when I messed up and when all kinds of app crazy: My thought was hmm, they gave me 10k, I’ll try for the Venture! 15K auto approved! WHAT’S HAPPENING! $25K in 5 minutes!
I let this all sink in for a couple days, and said to myself, “just do it, get the one you want Jacob, go for AmEx!” Now this is a truly intimidating company to apply with in my opinion. After all the reviews, approval adds, I honestly thought that I would not ever have a chance. What ran though my head, was that even if I get declined, I still have my new Capital One cards with ridiculous limits. (to me anyways…) I chose the card that I, again, was pre-qualified for, the AmEx Everyday Blue Cash (no fee) and was approved for $1,000! Yay! I didn’t care about the limit, only because I knew I could grow it. So I got cocky, and I applied for the other card I was pre-approved for, the AmEx Everyday Card (no fee). I got the message to give them a call. I did the next morning and they were processing my application. I shrugged it off…
So! I still kind of wanted to see what I could get. I applied for the Citi DoubleCash, Discover It, and the Chase Freedom Card. Did I need all of these cards? Absolutely not. All the advice I have read says to only apply for credit as needed. I did not do this. Not at all. BUT here are the results!
I still can’t believe it either….
DoubleCash 3.6k
AmEx Blue Cash 1k
Discover It 6.5k
Quicksilver 10k
Venture 15k
Chase Freedom 2k
And lastly, I called to check on my AmEx Everyday app (the one that was still processing) and got approved for 9.9k! Honestly guys, I don’t know what I did, but I am ecstatic to have all of these great cards. I promise, I will be extra careful. Quicken Deluxe is the program that I use and I haven’t missed ONE PAYMENT on anything since I have started using the program
Ending credit scores after all inquires: 688, 703, 698
They actually improved more than they dropped. NO NEW accounts have been reported yet. I am still waiting for them to drop based on age of accounts.
Additional info, I am 29, have been at my job for 10 years, and make barely over 50k/year
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But there it is, my credit story! Thanks for reading!
