topic Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval in Credit Card Approvals

Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Creditobsession — Fri, 31 May 2024 03:39:04 GMT

I have been rebuilding my credit for three years. I started off with all three bureau scores in the low 500s and some versions in the 400s after a divorce where I pretty much had to start over with nothing. Long story short, I have been trying to get approved for the Verizon Signature Visa for about 6 months now. All Fico scores are in the low to high 700s, depending on version, with my bank card scores being solid 750s. With all collections now gone form my credit, I thought I'd try for preapproval once again. I was preapproved for $4000, then applied and approved for $2500. That kind of caught me off guard, but at least I was approved. I'm sure I'll get some CLIs along the way, so not too worried about it. Anybody else get approved for substantially less after preapproval? One thing I did do was close out and research before logging back on and going through the approval process again. This time is skipped the last part and went straight to the final application. One thing to note; I didn't expect a super high SL, because I opened a Wells Fargo Autograph card account two month ago. I know I should have waited on this one a bit longer, but the rewards are good, and I want to have certain cards before I simply age my accounts in preparation for a new home purchase next year. Thanks for any thoughts.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

CreditAggie — Fri, 31 May 2024 05:08:55 GMT

Congratulations on your Verizon Visa approval! I will let other community members chime in on their experience since I have never had this card.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Matt9543 — Fri, 31 May 2024 06:33:27 GMT

If I recall correctly, Synchrony will tend to only allow a partial limit until you activate the card. Did it say the $2500 was temporary? Also, they're pretty quick to add to your credit report so that will show the full definite amount

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

keekers — Fri, 31 May 2024 06:53:13 GMT

Congrats.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

NoMoreDebt — Fri, 31 May 2024 09:52:58 GMT

Congrats

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Creditobsession — Fri, 31 May 2024 15:41:01 GMT

Thanks for the reply! You are right on that. My temporary limit until my card arrives is $1500. It goes up to $2500 after that

I spoke to a Synchrony representative just to confirm earlier today. One thing I learned during the conversation is that Synchrony does not require your declared income to be on your check stub. So for approval, SL, and CLI purposes, you can include money given to you by roommates and significant others for bill splitting and paying in your annual income.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

CreditCrusader — Fri, 31 May 2024 16:17:06 GMT

It's SYNC, so it's the ultimate YMMV on ALL things.

That group is an odd duck, to say the least.

Congrats on the approval!

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

cashorcharge — Fri, 31 May 2024 17:44:09 GMT

That’s Terrific!! Congratulations on your Approval!!👏🏼🍾🥂

SYNC has been prone to be all over the place with future CLI's so I would venture to guess with good management, you'll see growth in the future

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Creditobsession — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 15:07:19 GMT

That is definitely in line with what I am reading all over this community board. Thanks!

Also, they use the Vantage Score 4.0 to check credit, and only hit TU. That surprised me. I thought they used Fico. My Vantage is about 60 points lower than my fico bankcard 8 and 9. I likely would not have applied had I realized that is where they pull.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Legally_Speaking2512 — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 01:45:12 GMT

I can't speak on the pre-approval process when it comes to the Verizon Visa but I have had that with a couple other cards like store cards right after my bankruptcy where I was pre-approved for like $2500 and then when I accepted the offer it was like $1,500. Anyways congrats on the approval.💯💯

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Rdbeetle — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 01:47:42 GMT

Congrats on your Verizon Visa approval!

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

SuperFlyEDSguy — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 18:13:04 GMT

First, a hearty congrats!

I just got this bad boy too and almost crapped myself when I logged in today to see a $1,500 limit post-activation with a $7,500 instant approval! That's not to mention that Synchrony generally likes me as I worked my way up to their "official" max CL on their PayPal Mastercard ($20K) and Amazon Store Card ($10K). I also have a couple other Synchrony cards in the $5K to $6K region. Now, I immediately freaked out a bit and thought that I had to do a CLI or something to get my original approval amount back. Their AI Chatbot was useless too. And, so, I called them.

I was told by customer service not to worry, that it's a "temporary limit" and I will see my approved limit most likely within a few days, but it could take a week or two. He reiterated that it's temporary because the account is new and that I shouldn't worry. This is good news, but I've never experienced it with any other Synchrony card before. So, we both ran into the same issue!

I also wanted to mention that Synchrony is an oddball when it comes to credit scores as they use VantageScore 4 [sic], which is more in line with FICO 9 as my two scores are generally very close in proximity to one another. That's contrary to much of the industry that uses FICO 8, and a few issuers may use older FICO models, but that's not commonplace. Just don't rely on a VantageScore 3 as it will NOT correlate with your FICO 8. I notice that my VatageScore 3 generally lags my FICO 8 by 40-something points! You could always look at your credit score with any other Synchrony card to get your VantageScore 4, which is updated monthly. The model is more forgiving than most of the older models just as FICO 9 is, so it's probably good that they use this particular scoring model! Just to give you an idea exactly what I mean, my current VantageScore 3 is averaging around 670, my current FICO 8 around 705, and both FICO 9 and VantageScore 4 are well above 740 and usually hover around 755! Talk about a HUGE gap! (I have a 7.5 year old BK that's probably holding my VantageScore 3 and FICO 8 back by 75-ish points! I also see much more fluctuation even with a "good" utiluzation as going from 3% or 4% to 11% or so will cause a 40 point drop even with > $200K TCL! Go figure.)

Again, a BIG congrats! This is NOT an easy card to get, so seriously, you're doing something right when you get an approval! 👍

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

DXness — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 05:33:43 GMT

@SuperFlyEDSguy wrote:
Just don't rely on a VantageScore 3 as it will NOT correlate with your FICO 8. I notice that my VatageScore 3 generally lags my FICO 8 by 40-something points! You could always look at your credit score with any other Synchrony card to get your VantageScore 4, which is updated monthly. The model is more forgiving than most of the older models just as FICO 9 is, so it's probably good that they use this particular scoring model!

I think this is heavily profile-dependent. I have seen the exact opposite trend with my VantageScores - the 3s have coalesced tightly around my FICO8s, while the 4 lags its TU8 counterpart by 40-50 points. VS4 absolutely whacks me for owing more on my student loans than I started with, to the point where that negative reason code ranks above the lates even. FICO somewhat shrugs the loan balances off. Both VS3 and 4 remain incredibly sensitive to revolving utilization as well. When I got the Verizon card, my VS4 was only 658, it has risen 34 points, but my profile has not fundamentally changed, util has just gone up and down.

Congrats to the OP on your approval! Getting approved for less than the pre-approval is uncommon, but not unheard of on cards in general. Perhaps they saw something upon HP that they didn't like as much? Who knows, but it can grow. Verizon Visa cards have potential to grow much larger and faster than most other Synchrony cards.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

SuperFlyEDSguy — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 06:21:30 GMT

Update: Customer Service was really on the ball as the full approved credit limit was once again available within just 24-hours! So, just as the rep said, not to worry because it's only temporary!

I would think if you try checking it again now, you'll find the correct, higher limit that you were approved for currently showing. He did tell me that it could take a few days on upto a couple of weeks, but it's usually far sooner than later. It certainly was in my case! 😊

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

SuperFlyEDSguy — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 07:27:46 GMT

I hear you and do agree. VantageScore 4 is definitely not perfect and won't be a better alternative algorithm for everyone, but it seems that many people do benefit from it primarily because so many people were dinged with medical bills and the newer model is far more forgiving in that regard. It's also exponentially more forgiving for legacy BKs that are yet to fall off, but still have some time to go, provided that you have good credit at the present juncture. I do see a lot of similarities between VantageScore 4 and FICO 9 as both tried to make life after medical debt a bit easier to swallow.

No one model is going to work for everyone, but the point that I was trying to make is that I believe Synchrony's [somewhat unique] use of the VantageScore 4 model does give far more individuals an opportunity to get an approval where maybe FICO 8 would preclude them of such. Loans, IMHO, and especially student loans are treated wonky by far too many credit models as for example, my scores dropped a good 10 to 15 points after I paid off my student loan! It was a 20 year loan that I managed to payoff a bit early at 17 years. I thought that it would help at the time, not hurt, but I was wrong as the lack of a current non-mortgage loan counted against me on more than one model! Even when you do have a loan to alleviate this, it doesn't seem to generally help on many models until after a fair percentage of the loan is paid.

I definitely feel you regarding VantageScore models in particular as they tend to weigh me down for the very same reason. Temporarily going from my usual ~4% utilization to ~12% resulted in around a 40 point drop on VantageScore 3! It was maybe ½ that at around 15 to 20 points with VantageScore 4. FICO 8 was barely affected and FICO 9 even less. Both FICOs saw maybe a 10 point fluctuation in total! The craziest part was that I had far more available credit at ~12% than many average people will ever attain as total credit! Go figure.

I guess what it all boils down to is simple as it's not really about which scoring model is the "best," but which one "sucks less" for your individual needs!

(BTW, I posted a separate reply and update about the limits, and confirmed that the Verizon Visa does have a "temporary limit" and it will be restored to the "approved limit" usually within a couple of days after successfully activating your new card upon arrival. This is just another one of Synchrony's many oddball methods of preventing fraud as they have several that are very unique to the industry. So, anyone reading could rest assured in knowing that they didn't change their minds resulting in a lower limit after the HP, but simply temporarily restricted a portion of the available credit as a fraud prevention measure. I was very surprised myself upon personally experiencing this, but customer service assured me that it's normal and everything seemed right in the account just a day later. They really should warn new account holders of this ahead of time!)

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

BCI — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 03:21:50 GMT

This happens a lot with soft pulls. During the SP the system may have not factored in your overall debt. The HP gave it the full picture which may have caused the reduced limit. Synchrony bank (underwriter for Verizon) is notorious for this.

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Wavester64 — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 19:25:43 GMT

@Creditobsession wrote:
I have been rebuilding my credit for three years. I started off with all three bureau scores in the low 500s and some versions in the 400s after a divorce where I pretty much had to start over with nothing. Long story short, I have been trying to get approved for the Verizon Signature Visa for about 6 months now. All Fico scores are in the low to high 700s, depending on version, with my bank card scores being solid 750s. With all collections now gone form my credit, I thought I'd try for preapproval once again. I was preapproved for $4000, then applied and approved for $2500. That kind of caught me off guard, but at least I was approved. I'm sure I'll get some CLIs along the way, so not too worried about it. Anybody else get approved for substantially less after preapproval? One thing I did do was close out and research before logging back on and going through the approval process again. This time is skipped the last part and went straight to the final application. One thing to note; I didn't expect a super high SL, because I opened a Wells Fargo Autograph card account two month ago. I know I should have waited on this one a bit longer, but the rewards are good, and I want to have certain cards before I simply age my accounts in preparation for a new home purchase next year. Thanks for any thoughts.

If you are a Verizon customer (assuming are) this is a great card to have. I started @ $4K SL, and it has grown nicely to $20K. They seem to be happy with that SL because I have asked for 2 additional CLIs since getting to $20K and they have both been declined. Thats ok though, $20K is more than I need anyway. Congrats on getting the card!

Re: Verizon Visa Approval Less Than Pre-approval

Wavester64 — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 19:23:50 GMT

@cashorcharge wrote:
That’s Terrific!! Congratulations on your Approval!!👏🏼🍾🥂
SYNC has been prone to be all over the place with future CLI's so I would venture to guess with good management, you'll see growth in the future