Hello All,
I'm new. First post.
I was married in 1998 with zero debt and no credit. He was in debt $14,000 bucks (mistake). Fast-forward 7-years... We paid off his debt completely, then had a bad year and he charged up 30 grand in 1 year on a CC. I filed for divorce and inherated half of that. I just finished paying everything off 2 months ago. None of it was reported to my credit report because it was all in his name.
I was given one BofA CC in my name for 8 Grand in 2005. I maxed it out to help with the cost of divorce. It's been paid off, but closed now. I had 3 late payments in 2007 and the rest were on time and the account is closed.
I had to pay child support (I'm a woman) even with 50/50 custody. I paid everything I owed on time. When I pulled my Credit Report it was listed as an open file with all kinds of late payments. I disputed and so far Experian has taken it off and its now listed as a satisfactory account. I was never late nor is it currently open, I now have full custody.
So now I've been divorced for 6 years. I opened a secured CC with chase for $300 6 years ago. My utilization goes up and down wildly as I was making the payment on it, but at 300 bucks, I wasn't worried about it that much.
I opened a new CC with Barclays through the Apple Store for Xmas presents with a $1200 limit. I have been paying it off to zero each month that I use it.
Both my CCs are paid off to zero right now.
Here is my question and problem: The Chase card denied my request to increase my limit. It's my oldest card and having only 300 limit on there really effects the utilization when I use it. I want to buy a house and I was told that I should try to raise the limit to at least 5000 if I can. I make 80 grand a year and I have no other debt.
So I applied to do so and found out that there were errors on my credit report. I've disputed all of them for all 3 reporting agencies and now I am wondering if I should wait for a few months to ask CHASE to raise it again, or take my findings, current credit reports, paycheck stubs, proof from the experian report that I've never been late on child support payments and its closed, proof that one of the collections on my report is an error (already disputed and CBA said they will tell the agencies to remove it) and go down to the bank and ask them to change their minds. I don't want them to do another hard inquiry.
2 months ago, I bought gas and went over the 300 limit. I still made more than the minimum payment, but for 1 month the total balance was over 300 bucks.
The following month I paid it off completely. Part of my denial was for the errors on my credit report and part of it was being "over my limit" ugh, the worst 60 bucks of gas ever spent. lol
I was hoping to start the pre-qualifying process for buying a house and don't want to do that until I know I have a better chance of not being denied.
The only 'bad' mark on my report is my closed BofA card, but its just waiting with a zero balance to fall off eventually.
I'm reluctant to open a new card with a 5000 limit as I don't want my history average to go down.
My Fico score is 628, but is set to jump to 661-707 as soon as CHASE tells them my balance is zero. (ugh... the 300 limit thing is bugging me so bad). I get gas one month and don't pay to zero and it fluctuates my score wildly.
Anyway... thoughts? Ideas? Thanks all.
