topic Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS! in Credit Card Approvals

PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 19:11:02 GMT

So I've had a thing for PenFed for about 8 years now. The first 2 years of that were plagued by high util, high inq, then the next 5 years of that were taken up by being a ch 13 bankruptcy fool. So I never could get approved for anything (back when I first joined I wanted to refi my car, didn't really care about CCs then). Now here I am 3 months post BK discharge.

I tried for the Platinum Rewards and Cash Rewards one month post BK, because I am mostly crazy and I shoot for the absolute highest goal I'm able to. Why apply/recon for a card I don't really want just to get in with a bank? Anyway, I got declined, no big surprise there. Did a recon and was still declined. Oh well. What did I expect with a pretty low FICO and a fresh-ish BK?

So part 2 of this story is I've had the same car now for about 8 years. It's reliable as Ol Faithful, but I'm bored of it and unlike when I filed BK, I now make a lot of money and can easily afford a new car. Strictly a NEED, not a want. So I decided to hit up PenFed for an auto loan just for poops and giggles. Did an app online, they countered my $50k ask with a $40k loan at 4.3%. Not bad, but I thought I could do better. They were using the same pull from the declined Plat app that was about a month old. I decided yesterday to call them up and ask if they could force pull a new app (which would show 3 mos of rebuilding and about a 50-70 point score increase.) Long story short, the lady on the phone offered me up to $45k this time at the same interest rate. Then I asked her about the possibility of a credit card using the new pull. She told me to write another recon letter, but to add that I wanted a new pull performed. (I'm the HP queen )

SOOOO Last night I did that. Emailed it, got an email this morning that my request had been forwarded to an LO for review. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest. So I go about my day, I'm sitting at the vet's office waiting for my dog to be seen and decide to check to see if any updates have been made. Amazingly enough I WAS APPROVED!!!
I had checked on their app, and I was like wait, WHAT? Is this a joke?! So I logged onto their site on my phone, and sure enough. APPROVED. WHAT!?

It's their absolute highest interest rate and lowest SL, but I don't care. I put my mind to something and I DID it. I am officially IN WITH PENFED, 3 mos post BK discharge. My life is complete, lol

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Loquat — Fri, 13 May 2016 19:29:04 GMT

Congrats on your success! Not a bad way to start the weekend!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

baller4life — Fri, 13 May 2016 19:41:57 GMT

That is incredible! Congratulations! Please post your data in the Penfed Approval Guide. We need some bk success data! http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Penfed-Approval-Guide-Please-Post-Your-Data-For-Others/m-p/4591561#U4591561

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 19:52:10 GMT

Congratulations! Welcome to the PenFed family!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:16:06 GMT

Thanks guys! I'm pumped! I even paid for express shipping haha, even though it's the weekend, maybe it'll be here Monday and I can bask in its gloriousness
Baller - I was gonna post in that thread but I don't have their NG FICO score I was approved with yet. As soon as I find it out I'll throw it up there.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

baller4life — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:23:05 GMT

Thank you! Your input will be extremely valuable. Someone was just asking was an approval possible with a bk.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Loquat — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:40:06 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Thanks guys! I'm pumped! I even paid for express shipping haha, even though it's the weekend, maybe it'll be here Monday and I can bask in its gloriousness
Baller - I was gonna post in that thread but I don't have their NG FICO score I was approved with yet. As soon as I find it out I'll throw it up there.

Sometime tomorrow when you log into your PenFed account you should have a message showing the "Risk Base Pricing". Within that message is typically where I find my NextGen score.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:43:35 GMT

So awesome! Such good things here about PenFed. Looks like I'll be looking into them when I come out of the garden. Congrats!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 20:50:31 GMT

Congrats on the approval!!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 21:27:11 GMT

Congrats! I love PenFed!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

padme — Fri, 13 May 2016 21:55:02 GMT

congrats

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Fri, 13 May 2016 22:25:35 GMT

Quick question for all you penfed gurus: I went through the final steps off the app process at home before work and submitted it. Logged in just now and its still showing under open apps on the almost done step. Did I do something wrong?

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

baller4life — Fri, 13 May 2016 22:37:40 GMT

No you did not do anything wrong. It's just processing. You will see complete soon.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

RonM21 — Sat, 14 May 2016 01:28:02 GMT

Congrats on the successful try this time!

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Sat, 14 May 2016 15:46:11 GMT

@Loquat wrote:

Sometime tomorrow when you log into your PenFed account you should have a message showing the "Risk Base Pricing". Within that message is typically where I find my NextGen score.

Holy moly! Just got this this morning, I was expecting something slightly higher than the 646 I had from my pull from 2 mos ago.

Opened it up and was slapped in the face by a whopping 726! Guess that fresh pull was worth it! FWIW, my FICO8 went up about 70 points since the last pull, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I AM. hah.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

tussking — Sat, 14 May 2016 17:21:27 GMT

Hi IamLetired....Would you mind sharing your recon letter with me ? I need to recon a CC denial and have no clue how to word it ? Thanks in advance and great job !

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Sun, 15 May 2016 22:36:41 GMT

tussking - basically I led off with my app number and stating that I was hoping to get a reconsideration on their decision. I added that I thought their bank was great, I'd had an account with them for 8 years, want to move the relationship further than a savings acct. Stuff like that. This was my second recon letter (I applied 2 mos ago) and I added that I wished for them to do a new HP of my CR because some of my previous reasons for denial were no longer a factor.

Second-fourth paragraphs, I addressed the reasons for my denial. I explained my BK and what led to me filing and what I'm doing differently post discharge. My other 2 reasons for denial had been lack of revolving account history and lack of recently opened accounts. I lightly addressed those, as I now had revolving accounts and newly opened accounts and explained that my new CR should reflect that. I also added that I understood ~3 months of history wasn't a ton, but I was hoping for a chance to prove myself to them.

My closing paragraph just summed up what I'd already said. I also offered the suggestion of a different card that was capable of a lower limit (I applied for a visa sig and usually those come with a min $5k limit). Luckily they didn't take me up on that offer and just gave me what I wanted

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Loquat — Sun, 15 May 2016 23:49:15 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

@Loquat wrote:

Sometime tomorrow when you log into your PenFed account you should have a message showing the "Risk Base Pricing". Within that message is typically where I find my NextGen score.
Holy moly! Just got this this morning, I was expecting something slightly higher than the 646 I had from my pull from 2 mos ago.

Opened it up and was slapped in the face by a whopping 726! Guess that fresh pull was worth it! FWIW, my FICO8 went up about 70 points since the last pull, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I AM. hah.

That's an awesome score! If your profile stays consistent, with a little bit of time with PenFed you should be able to get just about any of their products without issue.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Mon, 16 May 2016 00:57:11 GMT

@Loquat wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:

@Loquat wrote:

Sometime tomorrow when you log into your PenFed account you should have a message showing the "Risk Base Pricing". Within that message is typically where I find my NextGen score.
Holy moly! Just got this this morning, I was expecting something slightly higher than the 646 I had from my pull from 2 mos ago.

Opened it up and was slapped in the face by a whopping 726! Guess that fresh pull was worth it! FWIW, my FICO8 went up about 70 points since the last pull, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I AM. hah.
That's an awesome score! If your profile stays consistent, with a little bit of time with PenFed you should be able to get just about any of their products without issue.

Thanks! I plan on going nowhere but up! I was totally shocked at the 80 point improvement in only 2 months. Hopefully I can use that pull they just did in about 2.5 mos and get a CLI. Planning to use the crap outta this card.

Re: PENFED! Recon SUCCESS!

Anonymous — Mon, 16 May 2016 02:20:13 GMT

IAmLeTired wrote:
So I've had a thing for PenFed for about 8 years now. The first 2 years of that were plagued by high util, high inq, then the next 5 years of that were taken up by being a ch 13 bankruptcy fool. So I never could get approved for anything (back when I first joined I wanted to refi my car, didn't really care about CCs then). Now here I am 3 months post BK discharge.
I tried for the Platinum Rewards and Cash Rewards one month post BK, because I am mostly crazy and I shoot for the absolute highest goal I'm able to. Why apply/recon for a card I don't really want just to get in with a bank? Anyway, I got declined, no big surprise there. Did a recon and was still declined. Oh well. What did I expect with a pretty low FICO and a fresh-ish BK?

So part 2 of this story is I've had the same car now for about 8 years. It's reliable as Ol Faithful, but I'm bored of it and unlike when I filed BK, I now make a lot of money and can easily afford a new car. Strictly a NEED, not a want. So I decided to hit up PenFed for an auto loan just for poops and giggles. Did an app online, they countered my $50k ask with a $40k loan at 4.3%. Not bad, but I thought I could do better. They were using the same pull from the declined Plat app that was about a month old. I decided yesterday to call them up and ask if they could force pull a new app (which would show 3 mos of rebuilding and about a 50-70 point score increase.) Long story short, the lady on the phone offered me up to $45k this time at the same interest rate. Then I asked her about the possibility of a credit card using the new pull. She told me to write another recon letter, but to add that I wanted a new pull performed. (I'm the HP queen )

SOOOO Last night I did that. Emailed it, got an email this morning that my request had been forwarded to an LO for review. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest. So I go about my day, I'm sitting at the vet's office waiting for my dog to be seen and decide to check to see if any updates have been made. Amazingly enough I WAS APPROVED!!!
I had checked on their app, and I was like wait, WHAT? Is this a joke?! So I logged onto their site on my phone, and sure enough. APPROVED. WHAT!?

It's their absolute highest interest rate and lowest SL, but I don't care. I put my mind to something and I DID it. I am officially IN WITH PENFED, 3 mos post BK discharge. My life is complete, lol

First Congratz!

Second, great info & data points! Posting on baller4life's Pen Fed thread would be very helpful for others.

My personal take away from your data, with myself being a recently Discharged Ch 13, is to get cleaned up and start the rebuilding process.

I became a Pen Fed member w/ a savings account on 04/24/2016. By the time I am ready to apply, it will be past their 90 day window for several apps on one pull. But the new HP will be worth it at that point in time.

Ch 13 Paid in Full.: 03/29/16
Ch 13 Discharged: 05/03/16

* waiting on Trustee's Final Report in the "mail"

03/17/16 Fico 8 Scores: EQ 546, TU 501, EX 548
05/14/16 Fico 8 Scores: EQ 563, TU 523, EX 548