Help, I screwed up!

[Anonymous]

About 60 days ago I went a little nuts with apps. At the time I had one card with a 15k balance and several cards with no balance, never any lates or anything (bankruptcy about 15 years ago, nothing bad since). In a couple of weeks I opened 6 cards - all to get 0% or points offers. Chase Freedom, Chase Slate, AmEx Delta, AmEx Blue and BOA Sandals-branded. I transferred my balance around so that it's all at 0%. Those six cards are all above 80% utilization but all my older cards are 0-10%.

Last week I got notified that BOA had closed my account (with the outstanding balance). A few days later I got notified that AmEx cut the limit in half on one of my older cards (had it about three years with no lates).

Obviously I've totally screwed up so where do I go from here? I'm paying as much as possible as fast as possible, but OTOH I don't want any more of my accounts closed or lowered so I'm hesitant to pay them off right now until my score recovers.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
About 60 days ago I went a little nuts with apps. At the time I had one card with a 15k balance and several cards with no balance, never any lates or anything (bankruptcy about 15 years ago, nothing bad since). In a couple of weeks I opened 6 cards - all to get 0% or points offers. Chase Freedom, Chase Slate, AmEx Delta, AmEx Blue and BOA Sandals-branded. I transferred my balance around so that it's all at 0%. Those six cards are all above 80% utilization but all my older cards are 0-10%.

Last week I got notified that BOA had closed my account (with the outstanding balance). A few days later I got notified that AmEx cut the limit in half on one of my older cards (had it about three years with no lates).

Obviously I've totally screwed up so where do I go from here? I'm paying as much as possible as fast as possible, but OTOH I don't want any more of my accounts closed or lowered so I'm hesitant to pay them off right now until my score recovers.

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That's why you are getting and will continue to get AA(adverse action). You have 6 cards reporting 80% utilization. Bad move.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I know. I'm here looking for advice, not to get beat up more.

[Anonymous]

What's done is done. Don't stress it too hard.

Pay off those 0% balances before the intro rate runs out. Nurture all of your accounts. Don't apply for anything else for a good long while. Even if you receive additional CLDs, this is all going to even out at some point and your limits will start going back up again.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Yes, I know. I'm here looking for advice, not to get beat up more.

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Welcome to the forums, I'm not beating up on you. List out your limits on each card and what the balances are. Even the ones with zero balances. Let's see how we can bring the 80%'s down.

[Anonymous]

Definitely list,CC cl's, balance and any strategy you already have in place....this will help in giving you better advice

[Anonymous]

Here's where I am currently. The smaller ones are paid month-to-month. I don't have much of a strategy right now other than to pay them before the 0% ends in July-October of 2018, which should be easily do-able.

Another way that I screwed up is that I canceled two of my oldest cards when I got the new ones. They each had a high annual fee.

BOA Sandals, $4,000, $3,274.87, 81.87%

Chase Slate, $3,000, $2,377.14, 79.24%

Capital One - Venture, $6,500, $5,129.14, 78.91%

AmEx Blue, $5,300, $4,000.75, 75.49%

Chase Freedom, $2,500, $1,870.37, 74.81%

Chase Amazon, $5,300, $483.62, 9.12%

Von Maur, $2,000, $151.78, 7.59%

AmEx Delta, $1,000, $55.30, 5.53%

Ann Taylor Mastercard, $1,750, $69.73, 3.98%

Merrick Bank, $2,100, 0%

AmEx Hilton, $4,000, 0%

Victoria's Secret, $750, 0%

Ulta, $1,860, 0%

[dak17]

What about an installment loan? Sure, it's another account but by the time it posts to your credit reports your cc balances are all 0% util. depending on how much you are approved for.

If you opted to do more cc transfers to even things out a bit, you will have balances reporting on almost all of your cards which doesn't look good either.

[HeavenOhio]

Getting rid of the annual fee cards was probably prudent. They're likely to continue to report for years to come.

How much money per month do you have to throw at your balances? What are your APRs?

[ecxpa]

This a hard lesson as it is for a lot of people......you seem to have the resources to get rid of the balance transfers before the  promotional interest rund out.....that should be your primary goal.   BT offers look good but if it eats up your CL in can be disastrous.   Stay below 30% utilization all the time.   Take a break from apping and using your credit cards.   At least you have most of your debt at 0% ........for a while.