topic Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only? in Credit Card Approvals

Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

Pppoolboy — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 17:25:12 GMT

I have four Synchrony cards, each with a pretty small credit line... $2500 to $5000. I was drinking a bit too much last night and decided to apply for the Venmo card. Not sure why. Anyway, I unfroze Transunion and applied. "We won't do a hard pull unless you're approved" and all that. After hitting the "submit" button it paused for a moment then said something about me uploading photos of driver's license and social security card, which I did. Then it paused again and said something like "Your application has been submitted and we will be in touch."

I figured it was going to be a denial since I have about 20 inquiries on my Transunion and have opened 18 cards in the past 24 months, so I re-froze my Transunion.

Today I wake up to a couple of odd emails. One, from Credit Karma, tells me that there's been an attempt to pull my Transunion but it was blocked due to the freeze. The second is one from Venmo telling me to open the Venmo app. I do so and it tells me that I've been approved for an $11,000 credit line. 🧐

Usually when a new hard pull hits my report, my phone lights up like a Christmas tree as I get a slew of emails and notifications from all my (free) credit monitoring services. So it doesn't appear there was a successful hard pull. Kind of weird.

We'll see if the SL sticks, because I've read one person say that he was approved for $XX,XXX limit but then when the card arrived the limit had been slashed by half or so.

I forget which score Synchrony pulls for approvals (I know it uses Vantagescore 4.0 for some things) but all my credit scores have dipped due to all the cards recently opened and is sitting somewhere in the (very) low 700s. Even moreso, the credit profile itself is completely trashed with so many new accounts as well as the fact that I had to make a recent large purchase and my overall utilization has ballooned to ~12% whereas I always try to keep it around 5%. So I'm pretty surprised about the approval.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

GZG — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:00:58 GMT

congrats on the approval

if you want to play nice, just unfreeze TU and see if Synch will try the HP again at some point, or maybe you'll get a nastygram about it

but it wouldn't surprise me if their process starts with a SP, pauses for the ID verification and then upon complete approval, does the HP, but because you froze TU after the SP but before the HP, you didn't get a HP

yeah Synch uses TU Vantage 4.0 which is far more sensitive to LOL/24 than FICO is.

hoping for all the best, venmo offering 3% on wholesale makes it a great card

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

Rebuild2019 — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 18:03:43 GMT

Congratulations on your approval @Pppoolboy

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

Pppoolboy — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 19:51:09 GMT

but it wouldn't surprise me if their process starts with a SP, pauses for the ID verification and then upon complete approval, does the HP, but because you froze TU after the SP but before the HP, you didn't get a HP

yeah Synch uses TU Vantage 4.0 which is far more sensitive to LOL/24 than FICO is.

hoping for all the best, venmo offering 3% on wholesale makes it a great card

Thanks for your thorough analysis. If Synch used my VS 4.0 score for this app, it's currently sitting ~40 points lower than my lowest FICO.. around 670 😲

Doing a bit more research on the card, it doesn't appear too bad and has rather broad category acceptance so it can be a 3%er for extreme-niche high spend like liquor stores (♥️), Costco, etc. Might be fun to fool around with.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

yam1rts — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 02:33:09 GMT

That is a generous SL considering coming from Sync. Congratulations!!

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

StrongerReturn2018 — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 06:00:16 GMT

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

coreyb80 — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 15:24:05 GMT

Congrats on the approval!

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

Barky — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 18:25:36 GMT

Congrats!

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

cashorcharge — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 23:52:20 GMT

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

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

youngandcreditwrthy — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 12:56:23 GMT

@cashorcharge I've managed to get a couple syncb cards this way. they do that ID verification thing then I go back and freeze. i get approved based off the soft pull. its a great thing!

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

cashorcharge — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 05:27:16 GMT

@youngandcreditwrthy wrote:
@cashorcharge I've managed to get a couple syncb cards this way. they do that ID verification thing then I go back and freeze. i get approved based off the soft pull. its a great thing!

That's great! I will admit....So many "Synchrony giveth and taketh away" stories from people. With that in mind, I don't know that I could maintain enough spend to not get on their "taketh away" radar. Anytime you can secure a SP approval...that's an ABSOLUTE win in my book.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

pizzadude — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 21:02:03 GMT

Congrats on the SP Approval !!

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

TyrannicalDuncery3 — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 19:42:38 GMT

Amazing discovery!!! This reminds me of that movie "Drunken Master." Well done.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

breakman7997 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 01:26:38 GMT

Just a word to the wise. I had 11 accounts with them. All in good standing, most with a zero balance. Cards like Care credit, PayPal, Guitar Center, JC Penney MC, Crate and Barrel and some others. Well a few months ago I logged in and clicked on the credit limit increase for PayPal (which was approved for a 2K CLI) and two other accounts. During Hurricane Milton I logged in to see that they closed all of my accounts! I talked to corporate, all they said was "increased risk" when I know it was due to the credit increase requests. They saw how much credit I had with them and they shut them all down. Just an FYI

Buyer Beware of Synchrony.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

CreditAggie — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 05:50:45 GMT

Congratulations on your Venmo approval!

Did your limit stick when you received the card?

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

NoMoreDebt — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 13:02:05 GMT

Congrats

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

Ontherise2020 — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 21:33:10 GMT

Congrats on your approval

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

gilbertlok — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 19:28:33 GMT

Is it a soft pull then a offer, which in that case you accept you will get hard inquiry or you will get a hard inquiry regardless the limit ?

Sorta like what apple card does, offers a limit and if accepted then a hard pull.

Re: Venmo Credit Card - soft pull only?

gilbertlok — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 19:29:51 GMT

Is it a soft pull then a offer, which in that case you accept you will get hard inquiry or you will get a hard inquiry regardless the limit ?

Sorta like what apple card does, offers a limit and if accepted then a hard pull.