Am I ready to apply for a card?

[Anonymous]

I have FINALLY made it through the longggggg process of waiting for all my charge offs to fall off.  My credit scores are now: EQ- 623 TU-681 EXP-683.  I have no more bad things on my report, but unfortunately it looks like I have very little credit history because everything is gone.  I want to get a card to help establish credit history and to use.  Which card should I apply for or should I still be waiting?

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, welcome to the forums, and congrats on the clean reports!

May I ask, where did you get your "scores"? --because Experian stopped allowing consumers to learn their EX FICO score a year ago. The only way we can find it out now is either to apply for a mortgage, yikes, or gain membership in a credit union in Pennsylvania called PSECU, which is very hard to qualify for. Oh, and Chase is piloting a deal for its customers who have checking and a CC, but it's a 10-point range, not a firm score. Non-FICO scores are frequently termed "FAKO's", because they basically aren't used by lenders, and they're a cash cow for those who sell them, which includes Experian and TransUnion, and their associated credit monitoring services. btw, the monitoring services, which look at your reports, are fine. It's just the scores which are bogus.

Anyway, there's a good chance that your FICO scores are higher. You can get them at these sites:

EQ from myFICO.com --click on the Products tab
EQ from the Equifax website --EQ is the only one who will sell you your FICO from its main website
TU from myFICO.com --click on the Products tab
TU from www.transunioncs.com --note the cs at the end. The regular site sells you FAKO's.

Anyway, all that aside, what do you still have on your reports? How old is your oldest account reporting, open or closed, and what's your AAoA (average age of accounts)? I would have expected higher scores than these for clean reports, unless you have balances reporting or something.

[BungalowMo]

Greetings hdsbmt!!

Let me start by saying welcome to the forums!!   You won't find a better source of information & real life advice anywhere.  And we're FREE!

The first thing I want to ask is where you got your scores.  The general public has not been able to purchase their own Experian FICO score for just over a year now, so I'm guessing you got those from a site where you pulled all 3.

The reports themselves are fine, but the scores are what we call FAKO's & mean absolutely nothing!

You can purchase your Equifax & Trans Union FICO's here on this site, but do a google search for "fico discount codes" to get some $$ off.

You can also get some great information in the upper section *stickied threads* of the credit cardarea & also in the rebuilding your credit section.

We're all here to help you get to your goals!  

Mo

**Hauling is pretty "quick on the draw"!   

Message Edited by BungalowMo on 02-16-2010 03:01 PM

[Anonymous]

Forgive me- I guess I got what is called a Vantage Score.  I went back and looked at my paper work and that's what it said.  I thought it was the same thing.  I have a student loan and a car loan that are on my report now and a secured installment loan for an appliance that is in good standing.  My oldest is an older car loan reporting completely paid off but was started in '98.  And the student loan going back to 2002.  My Equifax may be a little higher now because I had a medical bill still showing on there and I have written a letter to get it removed.

[Wolf3]

It is definetly time to expand your credit.  

Spend a little time thinking about who you want to do business with in the future.   You might want to start with secured or starter card with them. 

Who has your checking and savings? Who has current loans and past loans with good history.   That may be a good place to start as well.  You may want to open a checking and savings in a bank / cu that you want to get credit with.  

Who have you burned?   Not a good place to start. 

What stores do you frequent.   Another place to start.  

Others may disagree, but I would not waste time with institutions that I don't want to keep doing business with. 

[woozy]

I wracked my brain over the same problem. What I didn't want was a hard pull followed by a denial.

I began by looking at pre-approval offers. I found something on the HSBC site that looked promising. They let me pre-apply. The site even goes into a long explanation of how it works. I pulled the trigger on the pre-app, and the system told me I was pre-approved. I held my breath (I actually mean my nose) and hit the button.

Bingo, $2000, my first credit card in 7 years.

My scores are somewhat higher than yours, but you have some current activity, and I had none.

HSBC isn't the most-loved, but I'm happy to get it.

[woozy]

Here's the link    http://www.hsbccreditcard.com/?refer=hsbcusa

Thank you, socalfiremedic, I got a card.  A PLATINUM card.

If you get denied on the soft pull, maybe Orchard will give you an unsecured.

[Anonymous]

Is this card a "bank" card?

I got preapproved for a card, but it has a annual fee of $79, which makes me .

[woozy]

It's a real Mastercard, no annual fee. 0% for 6 months, and 1% cash back.

The rate is variable, but I didn't care. It's a credit building device for me, not a reason to go shoe shopping.

I heeded the good advice to not go to anyone that I burned.

[Wolf3]

Was it for an unsecured or secured card?  The secured card fee is about $39

If you have some cash, you might consider a secured card with other major banks,   US Bank, BofA, CIti, etc.   There annual fees are less.