Thanks to the information on this site, and working through my credit issues, I have managed to get my FICO from 535 a little over a year ago up to 700. Some of the issues fell off naturally, some I was able to get removed. Last year I purchased a car and the best interest rate I could get, even though I was putting over 20% down, was 10%. Two weeks ago I purchased a used pickup truck and DCU gave me a loan with an interest rate of 3.49%.
I was corresponding with DCUs customer support over some of their other products, as I have been unhappy with my current CUs customer support and don't mind switching. DCU emailed and said I could apply for thier Visa card, which can be automatically linked to my accounts to provide overdraft protection at no charge. They also stated that as long as I obtained a loan within 45 days they would not have to do a hard pull, they can just use the report they have on file. As I had nothing to loose I went a head and applied.
Today I got an alert from USAA about a hard pull on my report. I updated my reports and found 2 new HPs from DCU. I bought the truck on the 6th and on that day there are two HPs on Experian, one from the truck dealer the 2nd shows as "CUDL/DCU". Then on the 9th there is a HP from Equifax just showing "DCU". As they are two different CRAs I suspect the Equifax pull was probably a loan underwriting check for the truck purchase. On the 17th, the day I applied for the Visa, there is a 2nd HP from DCU on Experian. I know that this is really a trivial issue, as two pulls 8 days apart from the same lender probably won't raise any red flags with other lenders. I just bugs me that they told me they wouldn't do an HP and it appears they did it anyway.
FWIW, in the beginning of the year I got a Walmart store card (denied for the Discovery) with a $300CL. Last month I applied to Cap. One just trying to get some utilization as I had no revolving accounts before. Cap one gave me a card with a $500CL with the autosteps up to $750 if I'm a good boy. When I applied at DCU I told them I had no CL in mind so they went ahead an approved me for a $5000CL. Quite a jump in 4 months, but I've been working it. This summer a paid tax lein and an old repossession fall off so I can't wait to see my score then.
