topic Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?) in Credit Card Applications

LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

seattlecredit08 — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:14:13 GMT

I thought I would share my recent experience with Synchrony, which is the issuer behind the LOWES store card.

After doing a considerable amount of research on this forum, I decided to pull the trigger on this one.

My rationale was:

LOWES pulls TU fairly predictably and I wanted a TU puller. My TU FICO has been rising steadily into prime territory.
From what I could tell, Synchrony was supposed not supposed to be inquiry sensitive. I did not have that many inquiries but the number was still not 0 (see below)
Something else I really liked-- if approved, one can almost immediately call their call center and request a massive CLI which is often either granted in full or countered with a CL which is still much higher than the approval limit. There are many stores of people getting approved for $3,000 and almost instantly pushing that limit to $25,000. This of course, can immensely help with growing TCL
I figured I could actually use this card, especially if I get a follow on no interest for 18 months offer

So, right before ringing in a New Year, I figured I would just get an easy approval and coast into 2019 with an extra $10,000-$25,000 CL. I set down at my desk and took a total of 45 seconds to fill out their application.

Well, from there, it did not go as well as I planned...

Here is what happened next:

First, I did not get the instant approval I was hoping to get and instead received a 7-10 day message.
Still not perturbed in any way, I decided to give Synchrony call center a quick ring, expecting to hear the usual "your application is under review."
Instead, after a quick 1-2 minute hold time, the agent came back with the dreaded denial "Sorry, your application cannot be approved at this time."
Of course, I tried to ask for any details and, as predictably, I was told that for security reasons, they cannot disclose anything on the phone
At this point, I am feeling pretty bummed but not yet fully desolate. I kept a glimmer of hope that perhaps I will get some verification notice in the mail and will be able to push through with the approval in the new year

Well, today I got that notice finally (by the way, one nice thing about Synchrony's online applications is that their notice is sent as a PDF in addition to snail mail).

Reason stated for denial:

In reaching this decision, your application was reviewed and denied for the following reason(s):
NUMBER OF RECENT CREDIT REQUESTS

Just to share exact DTs for the benefit of others on this forum:

TU FICO is around 770 (+/- 10 or 20 points depending on the model)
4 total TU inquiries at the time of the application, all in the last 12 months.
- 2 almost a year ago
- 2 of these were on the same day, part of carefully planned mini-app spree <== This could been the real culprit, e.g. if their programmers simply put condition > 2 inquiries same week or month, deny, deny, deny....
AAofA is about 6+ years
Most (not all) revolving accounts opened in the last 6-12 months. <== This may also have been the culprit as well although I have seen Synchrony denial language reported on this forum about new accounts opened and it's different from "credit requests"

So, given all of the above, ***perhaps*** the lessons learned here are:

Lesson #1: Don't apply for Synchrony cards with inquiries in the last week (or month), just to be on the safe side

Lesson #2: Perhaps, just perhaps, Synchrony is not as inquiry insensitive as some people claim, at least under certain conditions (or they have recently tweaked their algorithm to be more inquiry sensitive)

If I ever apply again for LOWES or Synchrony products in the very near future (not sure if I will as I have some other plans), I will certainly update.

Thanks!!

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:22:41 GMT

Sorry to hear this happened to you.

All of the issuers are becoming sensitive to credit seeking behavior so you’re likely right that 2 other inquiries on the same day was a red flag as far as Sync is concerned.

Now that you have the reason for denial, I would call them and try to recon since 4 inquiries in 2 years is nothing and your credit score certainly should give a lift over any credit seeking behavior.

I had 3 TU inquiries when I went for my Amazon Prime Store Card, one of them just two weeks prior, and I have a much lower score and was approved for $1800 instantly but the underwriting for the Amazon card is likely looser.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

FinStar — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 18:09:35 GMT

Like any other lender, SYNCB can tweak its algorithms at any given time given any factors influenced by the marketplace, attrition, saturation, losses, and the list goes on. So, while you ponder on any reverse engineering methods and datamine all DPs available, their programming is usually one step ahead of your plans.

Think of the million possible complex conditions an application is processed through an algorithm matrix to determine your outcome. Albeit, no cigar, but at least you can see that regardless of the collective DPs, it's still never a sure thing. At least you tried.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

FinStar — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:30:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to hear this happened to you.

All of the issuers are becoming sensitive to credit seeking behavior so you’re likely right that 2 other inquiries on the same day was a red flag as far as Sync is concerned.

Now that you have the reason for denial, I would call them and try to recon since 4 inquiries in 2 years is nothing and your credit score certainly should give a lift over any credit seeking behavior.

I had 3 TU inquiries when I went for my Amazon Prime Store Card, one of them just two weeks prior, and I have a much lower score and was approved for $1800 instantly but the underwriting for the Amazon card is likely looser.

Except that for the above outcome, SYNCB does not reconsider system-declined applications.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 17:32:36 GMT

@FinStar wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Sorry to hear this happened to you.

All of the issuers are becoming sensitive to credit seeking behavior so you’re likely right that 2 other inquiries on the same day was a red flag as far as Sync is concerned.

Now that you have the reason for denial, I would call them and try to recon since 4 inquiries in 2 years is nothing and your credit score certainly should give a lift over any credit seeking behavior.

I had 3 TU inquiries when I went for my Amazon Prime Store Card, one of them just two weeks prior, and I have a much lower score and was approved for $1800 instantly but the underwriting for the Amazon card is likely looser.
Except that for the above outcome, SYNCB does not reconsider system-declined applications.

Ah so they’re like Capital One in that regard. That sucks.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 20:28:17 GMT

Closed my $25k Lowes card and have not looked back. Can walk across the street for a bottle of Windex rather than driving to Lowes to keep a card active. But now I have $22k NFCU Cash Rewards, $20k Sam's Club MC and $20k AMEX Magnet. Thank you Lowes!

Free credit days were some good times. Sorry if you missed the boat. The duck card and NASA left me behind but I caught other trains.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

Meanmchine — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 02:42:23 GMT

@seattlecredit08 wrote:
I thought I would share my recent experience with Synchrony, which is the issuer behind the LOWES store card.

After doing a considerable amount of research on this forum, I decided to pull the trigger on this one.

My rationale was:
LOWES pulls TU fairly predictably and I wanted a TU puller. My TU FICO has been rising steadily into prime territory.
From what I could tell, Synchrony was supposed not supposed to be inquiry sensitive. I did not have that many inquiries but the number was still not 0 (see below)
Something else I really liked-- if approved, one can almost immediately call their call center and request a massive CLI which is often either granted in full or countered with a CL which is still much higher than the approval limit. There are many stores of people getting approved for $3,000 and almost instantly pushing that limit to $25,000. This of course, can immensely help with growing TCL
I figured I could actually use this card, especially if I get a follow on no interest for 18 months offer
So, right before ringing in a New Year, I figured I would just get an easy approval and coast into 2019 with an extra $10,000-$25,000 CL. I set down at my desk and took a total of 45 seconds to fill out their application.

Well, from there, it did not go as well as I planned...

Here is what happened next:
First, I did not get the instant approval I was hoping to get and instead received a 7-10 day message.
Still not perturbed in any way, I decided to give Synchrony call center a quick ring, expecting to hear the usual "your application is under review."
Instead, after a quick 1-2 minute hold time, the agent came back with the dreaded denial "Sorry, your application cannot be approved at this time."
Of course, I tried to ask for any details and, as predictably, I was told that for security reasons, they cannot disclose anything on the phone
At this point, I am feeling pretty bummed but not yet fully desolate. I kept a glimmer of hope that perhaps I will get some verification notice in the mail and will be able to push through with the approval in the new year
Well, today I got that notice finally (by the way, one nice thing about Synchrony's online applications is that their notice is sent as a PDF in addition to snail mail).

Reason stated for denial:

In reaching this decision, your application was reviewed and denied for the following reason(s):
NUMBER OF RECENT CREDIT REQUESTS

Just to share exact DTs for the benefit of others on this forum:
TU FICO is around 770 (+/- 10 or 20 points depending on the model)
4 total TU inquiries at the time of the application, all in the last 12 months.
2 almost a year ago
2 of these were on the same day, part of carefully planned mini-app spree <== This could been the real culprit, e.g. if their programmers simply put condition > 2 inquiries same week or month, deny, deny, deny....
AAofA is about 6+ years
Most (not all) revolving accounts opened in the last 6-12 months. <== This may also have been the culprit as well although I have seen Synchrony denial language reported on this forum about new accounts opened and it's different from "credit requests"
So, given all of the above, ***perhaps*** the lessons learned here are:

Lesson #1: Don't apply for Synchrony cards with inquiries in the last week (or month), just to be on the safe side
Lesson #2: Perhaps, just perhaps, Synchrony is not as inquiry insensitive as some people claim, at least under certain conditions (or they have recently tweaked their algorithm to be more inquiry sensitive)

If I ever apply again for LOWES or Synchrony products in the very near future (not sure if I will as I have some other plans), I will certainly update.

Thanks!!

Do you have any Synchrony cards? If yes, are you the type that continually request CLIs ?? Your denial does not state excessive inquiries, just credit seeking behavior (CLIs)

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

seattlecredit08 — Fri, 04 Jan 2019 04:09:21 GMT

@Meanmchine wrote:
@seattlecredit08 wrote:
I thought I would share my recent experience with Synchrony, which is the issuer behind the LOWES store card.

After doing a considerable amount of research on this forum, I decided to pull the trigger on this one.

My rationale was:
LOWES pulls TU fairly predictably and I wanted a TU puller. My TU FICO has been rising steadily into prime territory.
From what I could tell, Synchrony was supposed not supposed to be inquiry sensitive. I did not have that many inquiries but the number was still not 0 (see below)
Something else I really liked-- if approved, one can almost immediately call their call center and request a massive CLI which is often either granted in full or countered with a CL which is still much higher than the approval limit. There are many stores of people getting approved for $3,000 and almost instantly pushing that limit to $25,000. This of course, can immensely help with growing TCL
I figured I could actually use this card, especially if I get a follow on no interest for 18 months offer
So, right before ringing in a New Year, I figured I would just get an easy approval and coast into 2019 with an extra $10,000-$25,000 CL. I set down at my desk and took a total of 45 seconds to fill out their application.

Well, from there, it did not go as well as I planned...

Here is what happened next:
First, I did not get the instant approval I was hoping to get and instead received a 7-10 day message.
Still not perturbed in any way, I decided to give Synchrony call center a quick ring, expecting to hear the usual "your application is under review."
Instead, after a quick 1-2 minute hold time, the agent came back with the dreaded denial "Sorry, your application cannot be approved at this time."
Of course, I tried to ask for any details and, as predictably, I was told that for security reasons, they cannot disclose anything on the phone
At this point, I am feeling pretty bummed but not yet fully desolate. I kept a glimmer of hope that perhaps I will get some verification notice in the mail and will be able to push through with the approval in the new year
Well, today I got that notice finally (by the way, one nice thing about Synchrony's online applications is that their notice is sent as a PDF in addition to snail mail).

Reason stated for denial:

In reaching this decision, your application was reviewed and denied for the following reason(s):
NUMBER OF RECENT CREDIT REQUESTS

Just to share exact DTs for the benefit of others on this forum:
TU FICO is around 770 (+/- 10 or 20 points depending on the model)
4 total TU inquiries at the time of the application, all in the last 12 months.
2 almost a year ago
2 of these were on the same day, part of carefully planned mini-app spree <== This could been the real culprit, e.g. if their programmers simply put condition > 2 inquiries same week or month, deny, deny, deny....
AAofA is about 6+ years
Most (not all) revolving accounts opened in the last 6-12 months. <== This may also have been the culprit as well although I have seen Synchrony denial language reported on this forum about new accounts opened and it's different from "credit requests"
So, given all of the above, ***perhaps*** the lessons learned here are:

Lesson #1: Don't apply for Synchrony cards with inquiries in the last week (or month), just to be on the safe side
Lesson #2: Perhaps, just perhaps, Synchrony is not as inquiry insensitive as some people claim, at least under certain conditions (or they have recently tweaked their algorithm to be more inquiry sensitive)

If I ever apply again for LOWES or Synchrony products in the very near future (not sure if I will as I have some other plans), I will certainly update.

Thanks!!

Do you have any Synchrony cards? If yes, are you the type that continually request CLIs ?? Your denial does not state excessive inquiries, just credit seeking behavior (CLIs)

Thanks! No, I don't have any other Synchrony cards and never had any other of their products.

From what I can tell (I could be wrong!), Synchrony uses language "NUMBER OF RECENT CREDIT REQUESTS" to mean excessive inquiries and language "NUMBER OF CREDIT ACCOUNTS OPENED" (I did not get this language in my notice; others on this forum have reportedly received it, e.g. https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Applications/Amazon-Synchrony-denied/td-p/4968696 ) to flag credit seeking behavior.

Thanks!!

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

expatCanuck — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 18:50:03 GMT

@seattlecredit08

Many thanks for this PSA.

Checking out at Lowe's today, I was inclined to apply, but searched these boards first.

FICO8's in the 800's (Bankcard8 in the 850's), but a couple of INQs this past month.

So I'll forego the Lowe's card for now.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

soxfaininfl — Sun, 24 Nov 2019 08:36:03 GMT

OP, get an Amazon store card. That's a good card to start out with Synchrony bank. I started at 1,100 six months ago, and now my limit is 5K. I even burned Synchrony/Amazon Store card for 2,900 in a chapter 7 bk 2 years ago. Synchrony is generous with their CLI's (SP) once you have their products (Rooms to Go 2,500 limit and will be requesting a CLI once the account is 3 months old) from what I've read on the forums. Even if they decline a CLI, you can request one every month until they give you one since it's a SP. Once they given a CLI, you have to wait 3 to 4 months with Sychrony cc's. Some of their cards it may be up to 6 months it just depends.

I also plan to get a Lowe's card because Citi is very stringent with their CLI's (HP) with my Home Depot card (use it every month PIF). January will be a year since I opened that card, and I'm still stuck a 500 limit. I asked for a lousy 500 limit increase, and they declined me for too many inquiries and they added another inquiry after they declined me. I did have a lot at the time at (12), but Synchrony didn't care when they gave me my CLI this month (10 inquiries now). If I can help it, I will avoid credit cards that do hard pulls for CLI's. Good luck.

Re: LOWES (Synchrony) - DENIED - Inquiry Sensitive (?)

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 00:47:02 GMT

SYNCH, inquiry sensitive? Who'd have thought! I've had more than my share of INQ while appinf a SYNCh card, so maybe they are tightening up.