Which stores can you do the shopping cart trick on?

[iLiveCredit]

Last week, it worked for me:

The Buckle - $250

Victoria's Secret $500

J. Crew - $250

Express - $500 (Couldn't hold out!)

Trying for Ann Taylor and a couple of others backed by Comenity, later on this week

[princesstooth]

So how does this affect your credit score? What is the downside?

[SLR72689]

Just tried it for Brylane Home and was approved for a CL of $350. Didn't accept, just tried it for fun 

[TwistedAngel]

It depends on your credit profile.

It will cut the average age of your accounts (not so good)

It will increase the number of lines you have (good, or very good if you have a "thin" file, the only way this is a negative is if you have a while bunch of new accounts in a short period of time)

It is not a hard pull, so it does not affect your score that way (good if you have a lot of inquiries, irrelevant if you don't)

[RickyRay]

I also did this back in January this year, I only had one good account open for 3 months at grandpointe that was reporting, and over 16 baddies, I have since got alot of that cleared up (i was a victim of id theft at one time) finally got all that cleared, except still working on TU, EX and EQ are good to go now.  Anyway, I went to Blair, and Haband first and bam I got $200 each then on to King Size got $250, then Womenwith In got $250, BrylaneHome$250, and Roamans $250, Express $250, Buckle $250, and now I have 10 accounts with them and its been almost 6 months, my starting scores in DEC 2012 were TU 495, EX 506, EQ 510, all bad, Now May of 2013 TU 596, EX 671, and EQ 600, so they have really helped me recover alot. So I am gardening with these til next year, none of these did hard pulls, so I only have 2 inquiries on all, I think thats correct. But I have already graduated from King Size Reg card to the gold card, The rest are just building my scores, just charge a little and pay them of from time to time.

 Anyway after next year rolls around I will try for Visa or Mastercard, If I cant get one by then, I will take a sucured one. But anyway its a start. These are very good credit rebuilder cards even if they are only catalog/store cards. The lady at kingsize told me after one year then I could apply for their KingSize VISA card, Some of the red cats cards have visa's so that will be my next project next year, In the mean time, I will just garden with these, and enjoy a little shopping now and again with them. Oh, the lady at kingsize told me after 9 months of good payments with them then you get automatic CLs just so you will know that. Wish me luck, @#@

[always41319]

So I've been trying this out and haven't gotten any popups, so is it safe to say that if you get to the payment screen in your checkout process, you haven't been preapproved? That's what I'm thinking but part of me wonders if I'm just not going far enough in the process.

[09Lexie]

That is correct. Make sure you have opt-in to receive offers, CR's are not frozen and the personal info matches your cr exactly.

[always41319]

Ok, that's what I figured. I wasn't actually expecting to get any preapprovals--just seeing if I might get lucky somehow. I have an average credit score but my only lines of credit are my student loans--no actual credit cards, so it was a shot in the dark. Just a fun experiment

[nursepower]

How do you OPT IN?

[mongstradamus]

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@nursepower wrote:

How do you OPT IN?

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you can google optout, and then first choice will let you opt in or opt out if you so desire