@Anonymous wrote:
So I started rebuilding in December 2016 last year. I hired Lexington law still using them now and in the 4 months I've had them they have removed 22 collections. My FICO starting out was a 400 something, I hit all the pre qualification sites and came up empty so opened a secured open sky for 200 and after a brutal 3 week waiting period was approved for a secured Citi card for 200. I got an auto loan with Santander Bank for 10k and opened a fresh start account with finger hut. January ended I checked my scores and it had Rose to around 530 on all 3 reports. I hit the pre qualification sites again and came up empty again so I googled easy cards to get with poor credit and found the shopping cart trick gave it a try several times and it never worked. Middle of February a few more collections were removed by Lexington and my open sky and Citi card had been reported along with 1 percent utilization plus my Fingerhut account and my score went up to 550 . I received a letter in the mail from simply be.. a store I tried the shopping cart trick at and it was a pre approval for a credit card for 200 dollars. I was ecstatic and quickly went to the website and as soon as I logged in the pop up came up saying I was pre approved so I opened that account and added it to my credit limit. I then hit the pre qualification sites again and this time was pre approved for a credit one Platinum Visa card for 300 my first real unsecured card it felt great. I see that credit one and simply be are issued by commenity bank . I checked the score that they pulled for the credit one Visa and it was from Experian and was a 606 .. My goal is to hit 620 to qualify for a mortgage as of today is been 4 months and I have gained 200 plus points. Any advice on how to get that extra boost our should I just hit the garden and wait. Also on a side note how do I edit my signature.
Congrats on the jump in score. Stay away from the SCT as too many approvals in a short period of time will result in all the accounts being shut down. You have a good credit mix right now, so gardening would be a good idea. Give it 6 months, then check the prequal for Cap 1 again and if it shows a hit, then consider applying for whatever it show approval for, and if approved, close the Open Sky account, but keep the Citi card as it could open up the door for a long term relationship with them.
Time and good payment history is the best way to improve your scores. You've done well so far. Keep up the good work. 